FIC: Rascals, Scoundrels, Villains, and Knaves (3/5) (for icecream_junkie) - PG-13
Title: Rascals, Scoundrels, Villains, and Knaves, Part III
Author: frea-o
A Gift For: icecream_junkie
Rating/Warning/Pairings: Please see the first post for these.
Summary/Prompt Used: Tortuga, 1745. It’s been three years since they last sailed together, but when an old enemy resurfaces and takes one of their own, it’s up to the crew of the Avenging Angel to assemble and take to the high seas once more. Or: the one where everybody is a pirate except the two canonical characters with eyepatches. Drink up me ’earties, yo-ho.
Part: I | IIa | IIb | III | IV | V
7. A New Sort of Compass
Their return to the Angel was met with raised eyebrows from Coulson and Pepper. “You were successful, I see,” Coulson remarked as he gave Natasha a hand up from the longbow. He obviously noticed her wince, however, for his eyebrows went up even further. “Did you encounter trouble?”
“No. They encountered me,” Bruce said, pulling himself up onto the deck.
“Oh.” Coulson looked at their crew in surprise. “Was anybody hurt?”
“Minor injuries.” When Steve, still a little shaky, pulled himself onto the deck of the Angel and looked about in confusion, Natasha cleared her throat. “Phillip Coulson, allow me to introduce to you Captain Steven Rogers, who, now that he has returned, will be taking over his duties in regards to the ship. Steve, your new quartermaster, Phillip Coulson.”
She didn’t recognize the look on Coulson’s face-it certainly wasn’t one she had ever seen him wear before. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Captain,” he said, shaking Steve’s hand with just a little too much vigor. “Barton has told me so much about your exploits when you took over the Angel, and can I say, it is just an honor to be serving aboard such a legendary ship.”
She could tell that Steve wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but the captain gave the stoic nod that had probably gotten him far in His Majesty’s Navy and returned the handshake. “Honor’s all mine. Welcome aboard, and thanks for coming along.”
“Perhaps somebody might offer assistance?” Stark asked from the side of the boat.
It took both Coulson and Steve to haul him aboard, as his iron leg and iron arm-guard weighed him down considerably. The minute he was on board, he held out his arm to Pepper. The gash in the sleeve caused by Fandral’s sword was obvious. “Lady Pepper, could you be a dear and roll back my sleeve?”
“Heavens,” Pepper said. “What did you do to yourself?”
“Why does everybody always assume it was me who did these things?” Stark asked.
“Because it usually is, Tony,” Bruce said, clapping him on his good shoulder as he climbed on past. He looked positively gray with exhaustion. “I’m going to…”
“Help him to the surgeon’s cabin,” Natasha said to one of the deckhands and then glanced guiltily at Steve.
The captain only smiled. “Good to know she’s been in good hands while I was frozen,” he said. He signaled to two of the deckhands to haul the longboat aboard and began making his way to the quarterdeck. Sixteen months in the ice, Natasha thought, and none of them had entertained the notion of searching for him until Jane Foster had raised the idea of forming a hunting party to seek out her betrothed. Steve was the one, she thought, the one that would have gathered the crew to search for any of his missing crew members, which meant that nobody would search for Steve.
After introducing Thor and the others to Coulson, she joined Steve on the quarterdeck while he stared up, frowning at the masts above him. “Stark,” she said by way of explanation, and he nodded. “He’s made changes. She’s a mite faster than you remember, Captain.”
“I left her with him when Thor asked me to accompany him on a search for Loki. We had a much faster, smaller ship, one that could be crewed by the five of us. Nothing like the Angel.” Steve rubbed a hand down his face. They had come up from the stern, so he hadn’t seen the figurehead yet. Natasha wasn’t sure what he would make of the visage of his dead love’s face upon it. In truth, she wasn’t sure what to make of Tony’s using Peggy Carter’s likeness on the figurehead. “It’s so strange and so familiar, Nat.”
“Yes. Do you know what happened to your other ship while you were on a strange island in the middle of nowhere encased in magical ice?” Natasha asked, diverting the subject since they were nearing the territory of things she never discussed with Steve. After the Ferrous had sunk and they had taken over their rescuing ship, turning it from the Deviant to the Angel, she had served as his first mate, but they had never been close. She had lost Bucky; he had lost Peggy and Bucky. Their loss should have united them. Instead, it had created a gulf between them, and it was easier to simply not speak of it.
“I’m afraid I don’t remember,” Steve said. “Thor and the others might, but…”
Natasha doubted it; Sif, Hogun, and Fandral had seemed rather chagrined about the fact that they’d been doing their level best to kill the crew of the Angel, but none of them had been able to explain why, and nobody had any memory of how they had come to be on the island.
“Perhaps it will come in time,” Natasha said.
“Perhaps,” Steve said, but he sounded like he doubted it. “Are we well-supplied?”
“Yes, but we’ve no idea where Loki is, so it matters little.” Natasha adjusted her tricorn hat so that it blocked more of the sun. “The fisherman freed from his thrall did not know his destination or his bearings. I’m afraid we’ll spend a few months asking about in ports if they’ve seen the blackguard’s ship.”
“Have a care of whom you speak,” Thor said as he climbed aboard the quarterdeck. “Loki may be impetuous, but he is still of Norway and he is my brother.”
“He enslaved the minds of over eighty people and killed forty more, that we know of.”
“Well, he was just a fosterling.” Thor flushed red.
“And we’re fairly certain he’s the one that did all of this to you, big fellow.” Stark, the sleeve stripped back from his arm brace so that they could see the dent the blade had caused in the metal, joined them.
“All of this?” Thor asked.
“Who else do we know that has the juju to turn three fine warriors such as your crew into killers without reason or logic? And why put you in gigantic slabs of ice rather than kill you outright?” Stark patted Thor on the bicep as he walked by. “This was clearly Loki’s work, as was the attack on Tortuga. We were all given…”
“A curse,” Natasha said.
“Enhancements,” Stark said, glancing at her. “I was about to say enhancements. We were given them the night that blade struck the Lyskilden. Until he disappeared, we thought Loki’s were just to make him incorporeal. But clearly, that is not the case.”
“And you think just because he turned an entire crew’s worth of men and women into mindless Norwegian spirits, he also did this to Thor and Steve?” Natasha asked.
“Have you a better theory, Red?” Stark shoved his top hat back to scratch at his scalp. They had encouraged him to find a better hat, one that offered more protection from the sun’s harsh caprices, but Stark clung steadfastly to the one last remnant of the life before Obadiah Stane had made him a prisoner and removed his leg. “In my time in the scientific field of study, and I’m sure Doctor Banner would agree with me if he weren’t below passed out like a drunkard after a hard night suckling from the teat of any tavern in common London-town, I have always found that the simplest solution, for lack of a better explanation, is usually the truest.”
“And when it isn’t?” Steve asked.
“Then we come up with a new solution, but I think it’s safe to operate under the idea that a man we know to be capable of sorcery is indeed behind the imprisonment of two men in ice without any adverse affects. And enslaving the mental faculties of three seemingly very bright Norwegians at the same time.” Stark’s gaze drifted over Sif, Hogun, and Fandral, who were clustered with Volstagg on the deck, no doubt getting acquainted with news of what they had missed in their sixteen months of being brainwashed.
Steve glanced at Natasha. She gave him a half shrug. “It’s a sound theory,” she said.
“Why do I feel like whenever she speaks well of me, I should get some sort of treat like a performing street animal?” Stark asked the deck at large.
Steve ignored him. “So let us say that Loki was the one that imprisoned Thor and me. Should we scour the island searching for clues of where the count might have gone?”
“It will be a fruitless task,” Thor said. “My brother is cunning. If he has gathered such a large crew, he means it to attack some large town.”
“The town with the best stronghold ’round these parts is Tortuga, and he’s already scavenged it. Could he be gathering an army to attack Port Royal?” Pepper, who’d finally joined them on the quarterdeck, asked.
“We would have had word if Port Royal had been his destination,” Natasha said. She eyed first Steve and then Thor and cursed the holes in their memories that could have possibly provided a satisfactory answer to these questions. “Perhaps it is somewhere out of the Caribbean.”
“But unfortunately that still leaves an entire world of possibility open to him,” Thor said.
“Yes.” Steve ran a hand over his face again. Natasha did not envy him the concept of waking from a sixteen-month sleep to face a problem of this magnitude. “And we have no way of knowing which city he might be looking to attack?”
“Or ship,” Pepper put in.
Steve only looked more tired.
“It’s not like we have a compass that points right at where Loki has gone, though,” Thor said, folding his massive arms over his chest. “Such a thing does not exist.”
Stark, however, frowned.
“It would solve most of our problems, were such a thing to be had,” Pepper said, nodding.
“A compass that did not point north would frighten the more superstitious on the ship,” Steve said. “Would you ladies mind if I…” He gestured helplessly at the lapels of his coat, which was still dripping wet even though it had been nearly an hour since he had been pulled from the ice. “I am afraid the time in the cold has made the garment shrink…”
“No one will be offended here, Steve,” Pepper said, patting him on the arm.
Natasha smirked with humor she didn’t feel. “Need any help?”
Steve blushed and sidled away a step as he removed his coat. “I’m quite well, thanks.” He set his coat off to the side. When he turned back around, Stark had begun to fumble with his own cravat. “I was not setting an example, Tony.”
“No, no, no. You wished for a compass that might point us to Loki, did you not?”
“I do not see how that has anything to do with disrobing, Stark,” Natasha said.
“I have one.”
“One what?” Thor asked.
“One such compass.” Stark undid the final fastening on his shirt, baring his chest to all of them. The shard of the Lyskilden embedded there glowed faintly even in the daylight. “On the night you came to rescue me aboard the Red Skull, I saw Loki bend as though he meant to scoop something up with his hand.”
“But Loki could touch nothing,” Thor said, squinting at Stark.
“Yes, and because I knew that, I convinced myself it must be a hallucination from the pain.”
Natasha frowned. After they had been stranded on an island and rescued by the Deviant, they had mutinied and mounted a rescue to save Stark. The newly christened Avenging Angel had been swifter than the Red Skull, Obadiah Stane’s ship, and they had approached from the leeward side of the ship, hoping to sneak upon the much larger frigate. They had sent Loki, whose curse allowed him to walk through walls, ahead to warn Stark that they were coming. Chaos had erupted during that battle. It had led to the Red Skull and its blood-splashed Jolly Roger sinking to the bottom of the ocean, nearly taking the demonic form of Bruce with it. Natasha had barely escaped with her life. The danger hadn’t been at the hands of her enemies, but at the hands of Bruce himself. Even she, who had the most experience fighting among the crew, did not have clear memories of that fated night.
“There was a lot happening that night, Stark,” she said. “It could still be a hallucination.”
“Then how is it there are multiple accounts of the man holding a scepter, Romanova, when we know for a fact that for two years aboard the Angel, he could not even wield a dessert fork?” Stark asked.
Natasha had to concede the point. “You think he picked up a shard of the Lyskilden and placed it into that scepter, and that it allows him to touch things?”
“My hypothesis is that yes, he did. The magic in the cavern you described, on the island today. It glowed blue.”
“It did.”
“And what other sorcerous thing do we all know of that glows blue? Going back to my earlier statement-” Stark began to redo the fastenings on his shirt. “-there cannot be too many explanations. I think, given time and the proper lenses to magnify the light of my own piece of the Lyskilden, I can build a compass that will let us gather the direction Loki has traveled. And as familiar with the currents as I am in this region, I may be able to take you, if not his destination, at least I can give you his bearings. It’s more than we have now.”
“What are you waiting for, then?” Steve asked. “Get to work.”
Stark gave him a very obnoxiously indifferent salute. “Aye-aye, Captain,” he said, and, grabbing Pepper’s sleeve, headed below.
“Have we extra clothing for the duke and myself?” Steve asked Natasha.
“No, but we’ve bolts of some cloth we were hoping to barter for information if we needed it.”
“I made my own clothes when I was a cabin boy. I suppose one doesn’t need to fall out of the habit.” Steve shrugged.
Thor, on the other hand, looked uncomfortable, and Natasha could rightly guess why. Being royalty, clothing was handled by tailors and seamstresses. Thor had had the greatest adjustments to make on the two years they had been aboard the Angel together, but he had adapted well. Some things still gave him pause, though.
“Perhaps Miss Lewis may be able to offer you aid,” Natasha said.
Thor’s face immediately cleared. “That is a wonderful idea, Lady Romanova-” For no amount of correcting him could convince him that every woman shouldn’t be addressed as ‘Lady.’ “-I shall ask her forthwith.”
He headed across the deck to do just that, leaving Steve and Natasha standing there alone.
“In truth, they’ll all need to sew their own clothing,” Steve said, looking at Thor’s three servants. “I recall setting sail with them in search of Loki, but after that, it grows…a bit dim, honestly.”
“It will come to you in time, I’ve no doubt. Orders for now, though?” Natasha said.
“As much as I’d like to sail on and put this island in our wake, we’ll give Tony some time to work on this mystical compass of his. No need to make sail and eventually have to turn around and retrace our steps.”
“Aye,” Natasha agreed. Since she spotted a deckhand that should have been in the bilge swabbing rather than on deck, she gave Steve a nod and started to head for the fo’c’sle. Steve, however, cleared his throat. “Something you need, Cap?”
“You haven’t said where Clint is, Natasha.” Steve regarded her seriously. “Is he…”
“He lives,” Natasha said, and she could see Steve visibly relax. “But he was taken by Loki during the attack on Tortuga. So now he’s on his way to becoming a Draugr.”
And if that happened…he might as well be dead.
Natasha’s stomach hurt.
“Tony’s compass will work,” Steve said, looking every bit confident in his assertion as Natasha felt doubtful.
“It had better,” Natasha said, and jumped down, striding off and determined to put the fear of the Romanov Dynasty into a random deckhand. It didn’t make her feel any better, but it gave her something to do.
8. The Reckoning
Natasha didn’t dine with the rest of the crew. She never offered a reason why. She merely took her portion of whatever was being served in the galley that day-usually ship’s biscuits, a serving of beer, and a cup of lemon juice-and retired quietly to her cabin to eat. Most days she did not eat, but the others did not need to know that.
She could recognize the signs that she did need to eat that day, though. The fight with Sif had taken a lot out of her, so that she could feel her body beginning to knit itself together and heal from the bruises and blows that had rained down upon her. Her ankle throbbed. It needed ice, but they had none of that to spare. Food would help her heal more quickly, but she simply did not want to eat.
She stared at the two ship’s biscuits on the plate in front of her as though with the power of her thoughts alone, she could change them into a fine broiled steak, the likes of which Volstagg might serve if one of the grass-fed cattle from the herd of Tortuga had been slaughtered for a visiting dignitary. Food well-prepared changed things somewhat, but most everything still tasted like ash on her tongue. The meal spread out in front of her was likely an insult to the human tongue to begin with, not even taking into account the curse that the shattered Lyskilden had laid upon Natasha.
A knock on her door made her look up. Stark never knocked, Pepper never bothered to visit, and Steve’s knock was usually a great deal less hesitant than that. Perhaps it was Thor. “Enter,” she said.
It was Jane, holding a hammered tin plate. The brunette looked in a bit nervously. “Thor said I would be able to find you here, and I thought you might like some company with which to break your fast?”
That was the last thing Natasha wanted to do, especially when she was already faced with the reality of needing to eat, but manners required that she invite Jane in. “I fear there isn’t much room.”
“It’s fine.”
“You may have the table, I’ll sit on the bunk.” Natasha collected her plate, waving vaguely with her free hand at the table.
She could tell that Jane was deeply uncomfortable, but the woman did seem determined. “I do apologize for the intrusion,” Jane said, rearranging her skirts around her legs as she sat. “But I wondered if I might… That is to say, I have a few questions and Thor, darling that he is…”
Because she had absolutely no choice in the matter, Natasha took a bite of the biscuit. Long practice kept her from grimacing at the dry taste. “What do you need to know?”
“If you wouldn’t mind telling me, I find I have a thirst to know about what happened to you five years ago. To all of you.”
“It’s a rather bloody tale, Miss Foster. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Jane, please. There is no need for formality in such close quarters.” Jane made a fluttery motion with her hand that told Natasha the brunette was still nervous, but trying to hide it. “The crew either calls you Natasha or Romanova, after all. And for now, I am doing my best to be part of the crew.”
Natasha studied her. “It is quite a different style of life to the one you’ve known.”
“But that does not mean I am not willing to give it my all.” Jane paused. “Natasha.”
Natasha inclined her head, acknowledging the attempt for what it was. But before she could reply, a light tap on the door made her look over. Pepper poked her head in. “Is there room for one more?” she asked.
Barely, Natasha thought, but she squeezed closer to the wall so that Pepper could sit next to her on the bunk. Pepper’s presence was a bigger surprise than Jane’s. Jane, she could understand, as the woman had questions. But Pepper had spent two years being polite and nothing more to Natasha. She’d acknowledged that Natasha had helped save Stark, but she hadn’t appreciated the lie that Natasha was nothing more than a fashionable lady’s maid. Natasha had long accepted that this was the way their relationship was to be.
“My apologies for the intrusion, but Jane had said that she planned to ask you about the Ferrous. I thought you might require assistance,” Pepper said. She eyed Natasha’s plate in a way that told her that either Stark or Pepper had put it together that the curse had affected Natasha’s appetite. Natasha put that aside. It did not matter to her what either Stark or Pepper thought.
“You are in good time,” she said. “Jane had just asked.”
Pepper nodded and took a bite, gesturing for Natasha to continue.
For a moment, she was at a loss for words. Russians could tell great, fluting stories of mysticism and the supernatural, stories that were bred into them so deeply that at times Natasha wondered if she would find the words etched into her bones. Before her fall into the hands of Ivan, she had heard such haunting tales of the Rusalka, young women scorned and unlucky in life and love, doomed to walk the earth and kill unsuspecting men that wandered close to their watery graves. That ability to tell a complete tale and captivate an audience, however, had completely passed her up.
She cleared her throat. “You’ve no doubt guessed from my name that I am Russian, though I do not sound it.”
Jane’s eyebrows shot up.
“So it is fairer to say that I was Russian, and now I am not anything. But even so, in Russia, it is very cold, so cold that when I think of Russia, I think of the cold. And I had…reasons for leaving behind the things I did, to put as much distance between my country and myself. I applied for the position of Lady Potts’s lady’s maid when I discovered she would be taking a voyage to Jamaica on the ship the HMS Ferrous. I was desirous of a warmer climate.”
A line appeared between Pepper’s eyebrows. “But you came to work for me over a year before the voyage.”
“I am patient,” Natasha said, shrugging.
“Evidently so,” Pepper said.
“In my time in service, I met James Barnes-Bucky. He was Stark’s valet. We had…a dalliance.”
“A dalliance?” Pepper gave her an amused look. “Natasha, you married him.”
Well, Natasha thought, that was one way to tell the story. At Jane’s startled look, she sighed. “You’ve heard tell of the Black Widow?”
“Yes, but surely it must be false?” Jane looked puzzled. “The tale sounds rather fanciful.”
Natasha had to concede the point a little with a brief shrug of one shoulder. She knew the tale, as it was passed around the villages in the Caribbean. The woman, so mourning her new husband, that she cut down multitudes of his would-be killers in the blink of an eye with naught but a cutlass, so fiercely that when she stepped into the a shaft of moonlight, blood turned her blue dress to black. The Black Widow, avenger of her dead love.
“Whatever true, whatever false, the title is real: I am indeed a widow. Bucky convinced me to marry him on the passage over to Jamaica. Hours before the Ferrous was attacked by the pirate king Obadiah Stane, even.”
“It was a lovely wedding,” Pepper said. “For what it’s worth.”
“Thank you,” Natasha said, and was surprised to find that she meant it. “But it didn’t last. Stane’s ship came up on our starboard, seemingly out of nowhere. Even the watchman on duty could not have spotted her.”
“It would have made nary a difference if Clint had,” Pepper said.
“Clint?” Jane asked.
Pepper looked at Natasha, expectantly.
“The missing piece in our crew for the Angel. Loki…took him in Tortuga.”
Pepper seemed, for a moment, like there was more to that statement that she wanted to add, but she settled back with a nod. Her plate, like Jane’s, was already empty. Natasha had a single biscuit left.
“That night, Stane called for a parlay. There was barely time for talks to begin before he broke parlay and opened fire,” Natasha said, keeping her voice level and emotionless.
“I thought parlay was law among pirates?” Jane asked.
“It is. Obadiah Stane was a wastrel of a human being, a blackguard of the highest order. Bucky was the first killed,” Pepper said, her voice quiet. “Stane was faster with the shot, and Bucky, he just fell over the side of the ship. And Natasha…”
“I lost my wits,” Natasha said. “I do not remember clearly, but they say I cut down forty men in my rage.”
“Forty?” Jane asked, looking pale.
“With Clint’s help, it was close to sixty,” Pepper said.
Memories of that night were fragmented at best for all of them, though on their time serving aboard the Angel, they had put together what they hoped was a reasonable time-line of events. Stark, at least, had badgered them until they had figured it out. Knowledge, he claimed, was the most important weapon in any arsenal.
Natasha, given her druthers, would rather forget about all of it. Stark could stick his knowledge where the sun had no business shining. “Clint watched my back, shooting any man that dared attack me from behind,” she said. “If Pepper says we killed sixty, then sixty men we did kill.”
“Sixty men? Were you already a witch?” Jane asked.
“I am cursed, but I am not a witch.”
“It’s not natural, the thing that cursed them,” Pepper said. “It was something Thor called the Lyskilden. He meant to make it a gift to you on your wedding day, so it was aboard the ship with us, in the care of Doctor Erik Selvig. We’d no idea of its true power.”
“It doesn’t seem like something that could curse a group of men, no. It’s aught as big as two fists held tight together, in the shape of a cube,” Natasha said. “It glows like firelight, but it glows blue. Thor claims it gives off no heat, but no man should touch it.”
“It glows? Like the cave today?” Jane asked.
“Aye,” Natasha said.
“But how? How did this Lyskilden curse you?”
Natasha moved a shoulder. “As best we can tell, Selvig dropped the Lyskilden when he was shot. Stark has a theory that somebody struck it with a blade.”
“And that broke this…artifact? This Lyskilden?” Jane asked.
“No. It caused a light like nothing I’d ever seen, like a powder keg had blown to the sky, but more intense. It hit all of us like a wave of water. Every man touched by that light was thrown to the deck.”
“Some did not survive,” Pepper said, her voice quiet once more.
Natasha thought of Steve’s love, lost to the sea. The explosion, if that was what it had truly been, had thrown her over the gunwale. She pushed Peggy Carter from her mind and focused more on Jane, trying not to think about how alike the two seemed and looked. Steve likely had already noticed, she realized. “It altered all of us in some way, we think. Loki became like a specter, unable to touch or be touched, a shade of a man. Banner, you saw the effects for yourself today.”
“The demon,” Jane said, crossing herself.
“To Thor, it gave the strength of ten men. Steve, the strength of five, and it gave him the build of a warrior. Clint can see as the eagles do, in dead of night as well as the plain of day.”
“And its gift to you?”
“I heal quickly, though not as quickly as Steve or Thor.” Natasha did not mention the side-effects: the waking dreams, the lack of appetite. “Stark and Pepper were too far away. They were not hit with the Lyskilden.”
“But…” Jane’s brow furrowed. Clearly, Natasha thought, she had seen Stark bare his chest to the entire crew.
“We fought well, but Stane’s men overcame us that night. They left us on a drowning ship and took Stark, who was their original target. He was injured. A mast fell on his leg.”
“The leg had to be amputated,” Pepper said.
“Oh,” Jane said.
“But that comes later. What crew was alive had to survive in the few dinghies that were undamaged in battle.” It had been a long, miserable three days without water until they had found the island that had been their exile and their salvation. “We were rescued by a man named Justin Hammer. He kept us on as crew.”
“Until we mutinied,” Pepper said.
Natasha gave her a long look, but Pepper was staring at her plate. Because Jane was gaping at the both of them, Natasha jerked a shoulder. “Captain Hammer was an incompetent boob who did not know how to treat a crew. Also, one of our own crew was held hostage by a man we knew to be dangerous. When Hammer refused to come to his aid as well, we had no choice but to mutiny.”
“It seems that Thor and I will need to have a talk about honesty,” Jane said. “He did not tell any of this.”
“Cheer up,” Natasha said with humor she didn’t feel. “He likely didn’t want you to know that he sailed under a pirate’s flag for two years.”
“Thor is-was a pirate?”
“If we are being candid,” Natasha said, “at the present, you could be considered a pirate, Jane.”
“W-what?”
“Steve’s flag is one considered by the Crown as a pirate’s flag. We are wanted men and women,” Natasha said. “We forcibly took the ship from Hammer to stage a rescue of Stark. We called it the Avenging Angel and ourselves the Avengers because we sail under its flag. The Crown considers us criminals. Our offense is a hanging one.”
“Even Thor?” Jane asked, looking pale.
“They do not know his true name, but he is a wanted man,” Pepper said, patting Jane on the arm. “His title will no doubt protect him should he ever come under scrutiny.”
That did not seem to reassure the brunette much, so Natasha continued with the recital, “With a full crew, the Angel is a much swifter ship than the Red Skull. We hunted relentlessly for months until we found the Skull. This time, the battle went in our favor.” Natasha felt a small, humorless smile twist her lips. “One could say that it all comes down to Banner and his demon. The crew of the Skull never stood a chance against a beast such as that.”
Natasha herself had nearly been listed among the casualties. When his demon came out, Bruce cared little for adversary or ally. In fact, he seemed to find something about her fascinating. Steve speculated that it was the color of her hair, which shone like a beacon in daylight or moonlight, that drew Banner’s attention. The beast had chased her all the way across the deck, smashing through anything that hindered his path.
It had eventually been enough to sink the Skull to the depths.
“There was another incident with the Lyskilden during the battle, before Bruce’s demon destroyed the Red Skull,” Natasha said. “Stane had a second in command, a man named Johann Schmidt. He used the attack as a cover to cross Stane. Stark says they fought, bitterly. Schmidt tried to strike the Lyskilden with his blade.”
“And?” Jane asked, looking very much like a small child clinging to the stories of ghosts told around campfires.
“And now Tony bears a piece of the Lyskilden in his chest,” Pepper said. “The Lyskilden does not take kindly to any blade used upon it. Tony was the only man to survive.”
“But surely something like that buried into his flesh should have killed him.”
“The Lyskilden is a great mystery. Instead of killing him, I do believe the shard enables that iron leg of his, and his arm brace, too, to work like a man’s arm,” Pepper said.
The door pushed open. Natasha’s hand twitched toward her knife, but it was only Stark poking his head into the cabin. “The amazing hearing, however, was a gift from birth,” he said.
“Something you wanted, Stark?” Natasha asked.
“I’ve calibrated the compass. We’ve a direction of our naughty count and missing rigger, and we’re about to weigh anchor.”
Relief made her want to sag, but instead, Natasha picked up her cup of lemon juice and quaffed it. It tasted as foul as she had suspected it would. “Thank you for the warning, Stark.”
He leered. “Anytime, Red,” he said. They heard the thump of his iron leg against the floor as he bounded off.
“I shall let you return to your duties. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions honestly, Natasha.”
“You could probably just call me Nat,” Natasha said without quite meaning to.
Jane gave her a nod and slipped from the room, leaving Pepper and Natasha behind. Though she was eager to get above-decks and assist in the ship’s departure, Natasha did not move to leave. She knew enough of Lady Pepper Potts to know that Pepper had something to say. It was better to let Pepper speak in private. If left ruminating for too long, the woman would blurt out any thought that crossed her mind.
“Thank you,” Pepper said, taking Natasha by surprise. “You could have been honest about the mutiny, and nobody would have faulted you for it.”
Natasha didn’t shrug, though it was a near thing. “I was honest. We made the decision to mutiny as a crew,” she said.
“At my prompting.”
“Pepper, we’re the stubbornest group of meanest cusses you’ll find walking this earth. If we decide we won’t do something, you could move heaven and earth and we would still be a’right where we planted our boots. Stark was one of ours. You may have pushed for mutiny, but we followed, and that was our choice.”
Pepper studied her for such a long moment that Natasha began to grow uncomfortable. She tamped down the desire to shift in place. “You do understand that Jane is going to realize that no common lady’s maid could possibly cut down forty men, even one in a rage. She will have questions.”
“They always do,” Natasha said.
“Who knows? Perhaps one day you will answer one of those questions.”
“I might,” Natasha said, though she doubted it. Only one person knew her secrets, and she was content with that-provided she could save him.
9. Tradition
Though the ship was never truly quiet, Natasha found she liked the evenings when the sun settled lazily into the west and the air chilled. A relative peace could be found at any time-false dawn, true dawn, even midday if the circumstances were right and the winds were bonny-but that space between day and night had always called to her. She supposed she was very much a creature of that time, never settling, always shifting.
Aboard the Angel, it meant that the evening crews would be rousing soon, the day crews ready to trade the deck for the hammock. The evening meal had been served, and the sailors were winding down. For herself, Natasha had choked down only what she would need to keep her strength. She normally didn’t mind the food on voyages, though even with Volstagg’s cooking, it tended to be plain fare. Lately, though, she hadn’t eaten much. If it had been any other woman, she might have called it wasting away. Since it was her, she called it disinterest and left it at that.
The breeze was calm but steady; hopefully, it would keep them going at their current pace through the night, and perhaps even pick up. If it didn’t, there wasn’t a thing she could do about it, so she didn’t dwell. The Angel might not have been the fastest ship on the high seas, but she was yare. Natasha told herself she wasn’t worried as she moved about the deck, checking sheets as she did so. She crawled onto the railing, wrapped one of her legs around a sheet to brace herself, and stared out into the sky that melted into a thousand colors at sunset.
Heavy footsteps on the deck alerted her that she was not alone. “Evening, Cap’n,” she said without looking.
She practically heard him give her that stiff nod. “Nat,” he said. “All well?”
“Aye,” she said, and this time, she did look back. “Should you not be hunkered over your maps with Stark?”
“It’ll keep. His compass seems to have everything in hand.” Steve smiled and stepped up to the railing, leaning his elbows against the top and bending forward to get a better look over the side. “She still sails,” he said, sounding like it was mostly to himself.
“Don’t tell him I said so, but Stark-and Pepper-the improvements they have made to the rigging, they help.”
“You look as though you’ve tasted something foul.”
“Aye,” Natasha said again, and turned to look back out at the horizon once again.
“I shall keep it in my confidence. Aught else on your mind?”
Natasha smiled the same frozen smile Steve had presented to her. Steve sighed and nodded as though he understood, and she figured that, of everybody aboard, he most likely did. Both of them turned when another set of footsteps joined them. It was Fandral, who’d fitted into the ship’s crew with ease after his months of being possessed. He looked guilty, an animal caught in sudden torchlight, a bowl of that night’s dinner in his hand.
“Volstagg claimed a second helping was not amiss,” he said.
He was likely finishing out the rest of her portion, Natasha surmised, and from the glance Steve gave her, he knew it, too.
“Is there so much of the stew leftover?” Steve asked.
“Aye, Volstagg made too much-not that that’s common, Cap’n, Sir, it’s just that he-”
“Fetch Volstagg and the rest of the victuals, and anybody belowdecks not asleep. It would be a shame to let good stew go to waste.”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” Fandral said, and scampered off.
Natasha thought that was going a bit far on Steve’s part in order to make sure one of his crew was eating enough, but she said nothing. It had been three days since Stark had finished his compass. Three days on the trail of Clint and Loki, and three days since she had last eaten.
She did need to eat. She knew it, but she ignored it.
Since the lure of second helpings would draw a crowd and she had no desire to climb to the crow’s nest for solitude, she took up a much better spot on the deck and waited for the others. Steve remained where he was, leaning against the railing and studying the horizon. What he saw, Natasha would never know. She and Steve, though they had reached an accord, did not actually understand each other on that level. It made for a good dynamic aboard the ship, but at times it did frustrate her.
The others trickled in, in twos and threes. Thor accompanied Jane and Darcy, the latter of whom dug into the second helping of stew with gusto. Coulson strolled up behind them, nodding quietly as he took his place on a gunwale. Stark came bounding up with Pepper in tow, followed by Bruce, who carried something Natasha could not quite make out in the dark. He sat on one of the gunwales and accepted the stew that Coulson passed his way. Sif was the last to join them, taking up a seat by Natasha and giving the other woman’s stew such a questioning look that Natasha obligingly took a bite. No matter that it tasted like sawdust on her tongue, she ate it all, and immediately felt queasy afterward.
Once the sounds of eating had quieted, Darcy cleared her throat. “May I ask a question? Is there anything to do on this ship that does not involve the ship itself?”
“What do you mean?” Thor asked.
“A play, or music, or a recital, or anything at all that is not ‘hoist this’ or ‘jigger that’ or any of that talk I still do not understand.” Darcy looked at the tips of her fingers as though tempted to lick them like she had seen some of the crew doing. “I do love a good play.”
“Music,” Bruce said, his voice soft in the darkness. “There used to be music every night.”
“No, no, I think Darcy’s idea holds some merit. Cap, surely there’s a thespian in that buttoned-up soul of yours.” Stark turned his obnoxious grin toward Steve. “Let us now hear your Hamlet, my Captain. Don’t be shy.”
“Perhaps another night, Stark,” Steve said, shaking his head. He gave Natasha an exasperated look.
Stark glanced over at Natasha with a decided gleam in his eye. “What say you, Red?” he asked. “We should be so lucky to hear your take on some of the great roles of the bard himself, should we not? You could be your very own Miranda at sea, or perhaps Desdemona, or-I know! We have a Lady Macbeth in our midst, do we not? ‘Come, you spirits, that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here’-”
“Anthony,” Pepper said, decidedly not amused.
But Stark had that gleeful look on his face that Natasha knew well. Internally she rolled her eyes. She knew the work as well as any other educated young lady. Stark’s words would not get to her.
“-‘And fill me from the crow to the toe top-full of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood’-”
“Truly,” Coulson said, his voice bland, “you have a fine memory, Sir Stark. For a scientist.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Stark asked, swinging in his direction.
“It means that perhaps we should have some music?” Jane said. “Clearly, Nat never desired a life on the stage, and we should respect that. Does anybody play or sing? I confess, my skills with the spinet are not much in handy at the present moment.”
The original Avengers tensed, though Natasha doubted Jane was noticed. During earlier voyages, there had been music almost every night. Songs sung in voices roughened by the salty air, of course, but more than that, there had been… Clint was clever with any bow, be it for arrows or strings. He’d made his violin weep or cheer, or whatever the crew needed. In that moment, Natasha felt his absence almost like a hole inside of her.
“There is always this,” Bruce said, fiddling with his spectacles so they caught the light. He shoved the box Natasha now recognized forward with one foot. Her stomach plummeted as Darcy leaned over to pull Clint’s violin from the box.
“Ooh,” she said, looking about eagerly. “Who plays?”
“Nobody,” Natasha said, her voice flat. Darcy’s face fell.
“Natasha plays,” Bruce said.
She glared at him. He looked completely unrepentant.
“Probably not very well,” Stark said, snorting. “Who would have time to learn when you spend your days glowering at wayward sailors, Romanova?”
“I know what you’re trying to do, Stark,” Natasha said.
“And?”
“And it won’t work. I won’t play.” She wouldn’t take Clint’s place.
“We could use a little music,” Fandral said. “We need more merriment!”
“I play the spoons,” Volstagg said before he hiccuped.
“Perhaps the captain would maybe let us have a drop or two of his private grog?” Stark asked. “Provided we convince Red over here to saw off a song or two.”
“You’re making it worse, Tony,” Pepper said.
“Tell you what, if Nat plays, I’ll send Fandral to my quarters to fetch us libations a-plenty,” Steve said, and a cheer echoed across the deck.
Natasha sighed because she could just see Clint among them, goading her with that smirk to pick up the fiddle so that others could have a drink. “Very well,” she said, and she took Clint’s beloved instrument from Darcy. It felt ancient and familiar in her hands, which fit, considering that it had been a gift from the same woman that had given Clint his bow. She rosined the bow and tested the strings, surprised to find them less out of tune than she would have suspected. Darcy watched eagerly, excited about the prospect of music. Natasha did not tell her not to get her hopes up: she was no magician at the violin. That was all Clint.
Fandral returned with the grog just as she finished tuning, but he also carried with him a small washboard, which he handed to Sif.
“Well?” Stark asked.
Clint had taught her how to play by ear, which was how he had learned. There had been only one set of sheet music he owned, though, which he had lovingly spread out in the private booth in the back room of Fury’s pub night after night as he taught Natasha the basics. If she closed her eyes, and she sometimes did, Natasha could see every line in the page and every inked note. She had it memorized, though, so she began to play.
Stark’s face, as the bow flew over the strings with the ease of long practice, was priceless. Natasha continued to play, her fingers stiff but finding their places on the strings with only a couple of minor gaffes. Arrival of the Queen of Sheba flowed into the night, making the pirates gape. Clint had never played this piece for them. He’d gamely rosined off every sea shanty Stark requested, had learned the accompaniment to the epic Norse ballads Thor sang with a gusty baritone, and there were always the songs favored by the Royal Navy that he already knew, the ones even Steve would sing. But this one, he had kept only for himself and Natasha, and now Natasha played it for him, absent from their circle.
“Oh, I’ve heard this,” Darcy said. “It’s Handel, I know it is-”
“Shh,” Pepper said.
Natasha didn’t precisely lose herself to music-she had the technical aspects of it memorized, but she had never been able to add the sweet soul that Clint infused into every piece he played-but she did close her eyes and enjoy the notes, the way they sounded, the way they looked in her head. As the final note reverberated, Natasha opened her eyes.
“You were saying, Stark?” she asked.
“A gentleman admits when he is wrong. Thankfully, there are none of those here,” Stark said, but his grin seemed almost apologetic.
“You are a true musician!” Thor said, his voice lighting up with delight. “You should have mentioned your skill with the fiddle, Natasha!”
“It’s nothing,” Natasha said.
“Do you know,” Hogun said, and broke off in a stream of Norwegian. Natasha considered herself something of a connoisseur of foreign tongues-nothing could match Russian for sheer beauty-but it always seemed to her that Norwegian was a bit like sneezing.
“Come now, friend,” Thor said, laughing as he clapped Hogun on the back. “Do be kinder to our esteemed First Mate. What he means to ask you is if you perhaps know the tune to The Thirteenth Ballad of Heimdall, Most Exalted and Respected Guardian and Gatekeeper of the Bifröst Bridge Between Our World and Theirs, Fierce Warrior and Friend?”
“Oh, very well, Lord Asgard,” Fandral said, reaching for the pitcher of grog. “Use its short name, then.”
“Short name?” Jane asked under her breath.
“Er, no, I’m afraid I don’t know that,” Natasha said. When the faces of all four Norwegians fell, she hastened to add, “Yet.”
“Why don’t we start with something else?” Steve asked.
“Yes. A jig, perhaps, a good one befitting proper pirates.” Darcy bounced, and Natasha wondered how much the captain’s good grog she had sneaked.
“Not sure you’ll find any proper pirates here, but…” Natasha found her stare meeting Bruce’s as she maneuvered the violin back into place under her chin. This time, when she began to play, the tune was lively and gay. Darcy immediately giggled and climbed to her feet; Volstagg picked up the spoons and kept time, which made it easier for Fandral, Pepper, and Bruce to stomp along in time. By the time Darcy had hauled Stark to his feet to dance with her, Sif had picked up the washboard. Stark’s iron leg stomped heavily on the off-beats, which made Natasha grateful that the crew slept beneath the quarterdeck on the opposite side of the ship.
When the whistling began, she assumed an idiotic bird had decided to sing along. She looked over to find that it was actually Steve, who had pulled a wooden flageolet from somewhere on his person and was playing along. She raised her eyebrows at him, and he shrugged back. Apparently, she hadn’t been the only one to pick up a new talent on their time apart.
Coulson, goaded by Pepper, finally began to sing. “Oh,” he sang in a surprisingly clear tenor, “they say I’ve a lass in every port, but you know I’m a jolly good sort-me ma, she raised me a’right, taught me how to kick and to spit and to fight-”
“Me da,” the rest of the men sang with him, “he was never a’round, go on to the pub-there, you’ll find him drowned, in a flagon of ale as big as a whale-but me, I’m a jolly good sort!”
There were either seventeen or eighteen verses, depending on the inebriation of the singer. Coulson knew most of them, apparently. When he wasn’t playing the pipe, Steve joined in-he loved the verses about the kraken, which fit into Natasha’s theory that Steven Rogers was just a tiny bit mad-and the “jolly good sort” narrator’s fourth kill fit the bill for Darcy’s “proper pirate song” request.
That song faded into another ditty, and a Navy chant for Steve, and a Norse folksong with which Thor could serenade Jane, who blushed prettily through the whole thing. By the time they rolled into another pirate song, Natasha’s fingers were burning on the strings, but she played on. It was like keeping Clint’s spot in the group alive. She could give up the fact that she normally would have gotten a dance from Bruce, and even one from Stark, or sung along with Pepper, if it meant keeping Clint on the crew somehow.
When she saw the exhaustion beginning to leak through, and limbs growing sluggish, she began to play a low, keening song. She knew from the way that they stilled that they recognized it, but nobody said a word. They listened, letting the Romani song echo into the night all around them. Clint had never told them its name. If there were words, he had never sung them. They knew only that it came from his past, but that it was also his favorite. The last note stayed on the wind, rippling through the mast and the deck, and for a second, it was like he was sitting there among them, smiling.
Slowly, the note and the feeling faded. Natasha lowered the violin with aching fingers, giving a small smile.
“We’ll get him back,” Steve said, and the others nodded, somberly. Natasha looked at Thor, wondering for the thousandth time how he felt, knowing his brother had caused this. But the duke looked mournful, like the rest of the crew. Steve tucked the flageolet away. “But for now, I say that it’s time we say good night. We’ve a long day tomorrow, and a new day brings a new tide.”
That it did, and with any luck, Natasha thought as she handed the fiddle back to Bruce, that tide would bring her closer to Clint.
Author: frea-o
A Gift For: icecream_junkie
Rating/Warning/Pairings: Please see the first post for these.
Summary/Prompt Used: Tortuga, 1745. It’s been three years since they last sailed together, but when an old enemy resurfaces and takes one of their own, it’s up to the crew of the Avenging Angel to assemble and take to the high seas once more. Or: the one where everybody is a pirate except the two canonical characters with eyepatches. Drink up me ’earties, yo-ho.
Part: I | IIa | IIb | III | IV | V
7. A New Sort of Compass
Their return to the Angel was met with raised eyebrows from Coulson and Pepper. “You were successful, I see,” Coulson remarked as he gave Natasha a hand up from the longbow. He obviously noticed her wince, however, for his eyebrows went up even further. “Did you encounter trouble?”
“No. They encountered me,” Bruce said, pulling himself up onto the deck.
“Oh.” Coulson looked at their crew in surprise. “Was anybody hurt?”
“Minor injuries.” When Steve, still a little shaky, pulled himself onto the deck of the Angel and looked about in confusion, Natasha cleared her throat. “Phillip Coulson, allow me to introduce to you Captain Steven Rogers, who, now that he has returned, will be taking over his duties in regards to the ship. Steve, your new quartermaster, Phillip Coulson.”
She didn’t recognize the look on Coulson’s face-it certainly wasn’t one she had ever seen him wear before. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Captain,” he said, shaking Steve’s hand with just a little too much vigor. “Barton has told me so much about your exploits when you took over the Angel, and can I say, it is just an honor to be serving aboard such a legendary ship.”
She could tell that Steve wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but the captain gave the stoic nod that had probably gotten him far in His Majesty’s Navy and returned the handshake. “Honor’s all mine. Welcome aboard, and thanks for coming along.”
“Perhaps somebody might offer assistance?” Stark asked from the side of the boat.
It took both Coulson and Steve to haul him aboard, as his iron leg and iron arm-guard weighed him down considerably. The minute he was on board, he held out his arm to Pepper. The gash in the sleeve caused by Fandral’s sword was obvious. “Lady Pepper, could you be a dear and roll back my sleeve?”
“Heavens,” Pepper said. “What did you do to yourself?”
“Why does everybody always assume it was me who did these things?” Stark asked.
“Because it usually is, Tony,” Bruce said, clapping him on his good shoulder as he climbed on past. He looked positively gray with exhaustion. “I’m going to…”
“Help him to the surgeon’s cabin,” Natasha said to one of the deckhands and then glanced guiltily at Steve.
The captain only smiled. “Good to know she’s been in good hands while I was frozen,” he said. He signaled to two of the deckhands to haul the longboat aboard and began making his way to the quarterdeck. Sixteen months in the ice, Natasha thought, and none of them had entertained the notion of searching for him until Jane Foster had raised the idea of forming a hunting party to seek out her betrothed. Steve was the one, she thought, the one that would have gathered the crew to search for any of his missing crew members, which meant that nobody would search for Steve.
After introducing Thor and the others to Coulson, she joined Steve on the quarterdeck while he stared up, frowning at the masts above him. “Stark,” she said by way of explanation, and he nodded. “He’s made changes. She’s a mite faster than you remember, Captain.”
“I left her with him when Thor asked me to accompany him on a search for Loki. We had a much faster, smaller ship, one that could be crewed by the five of us. Nothing like the Angel.” Steve rubbed a hand down his face. They had come up from the stern, so he hadn’t seen the figurehead yet. Natasha wasn’t sure what he would make of the visage of his dead love’s face upon it. In truth, she wasn’t sure what to make of Tony’s using Peggy Carter’s likeness on the figurehead. “It’s so strange and so familiar, Nat.”
“Yes. Do you know what happened to your other ship while you were on a strange island in the middle of nowhere encased in magical ice?” Natasha asked, diverting the subject since they were nearing the territory of things she never discussed with Steve. After the Ferrous had sunk and they had taken over their rescuing ship, turning it from the Deviant to the Angel, she had served as his first mate, but they had never been close. She had lost Bucky; he had lost Peggy and Bucky. Their loss should have united them. Instead, it had created a gulf between them, and it was easier to simply not speak of it.
“I’m afraid I don’t remember,” Steve said. “Thor and the others might, but…”
Natasha doubted it; Sif, Hogun, and Fandral had seemed rather chagrined about the fact that they’d been doing their level best to kill the crew of the Angel, but none of them had been able to explain why, and nobody had any memory of how they had come to be on the island.
“Perhaps it will come in time,” Natasha said.
“Perhaps,” Steve said, but he sounded like he doubted it. “Are we well-supplied?”
“Yes, but we’ve no idea where Loki is, so it matters little.” Natasha adjusted her tricorn hat so that it blocked more of the sun. “The fisherman freed from his thrall did not know his destination or his bearings. I’m afraid we’ll spend a few months asking about in ports if they’ve seen the blackguard’s ship.”
“Have a care of whom you speak,” Thor said as he climbed aboard the quarterdeck. “Loki may be impetuous, but he is still of Norway and he is my brother.”
“He enslaved the minds of over eighty people and killed forty more, that we know of.”
“Well, he was just a fosterling.” Thor flushed red.
“And we’re fairly certain he’s the one that did all of this to you, big fellow.” Stark, the sleeve stripped back from his arm brace so that they could see the dent the blade had caused in the metal, joined them.
“All of this?” Thor asked.
“Who else do we know that has the juju to turn three fine warriors such as your crew into killers without reason or logic? And why put you in gigantic slabs of ice rather than kill you outright?” Stark patted Thor on the bicep as he walked by. “This was clearly Loki’s work, as was the attack on Tortuga. We were all given…”
“A curse,” Natasha said.
“Enhancements,” Stark said, glancing at her. “I was about to say enhancements. We were given them the night that blade struck the Lyskilden. Until he disappeared, we thought Loki’s were just to make him incorporeal. But clearly, that is not the case.”
“And you think just because he turned an entire crew’s worth of men and women into mindless Norwegian spirits, he also did this to Thor and Steve?” Natasha asked.
“Have you a better theory, Red?” Stark shoved his top hat back to scratch at his scalp. They had encouraged him to find a better hat, one that offered more protection from the sun’s harsh caprices, but Stark clung steadfastly to the one last remnant of the life before Obadiah Stane had made him a prisoner and removed his leg. “In my time in the scientific field of study, and I’m sure Doctor Banner would agree with me if he weren’t below passed out like a drunkard after a hard night suckling from the teat of any tavern in common London-town, I have always found that the simplest solution, for lack of a better explanation, is usually the truest.”
“And when it isn’t?” Steve asked.
“Then we come up with a new solution, but I think it’s safe to operate under the idea that a man we know to be capable of sorcery is indeed behind the imprisonment of two men in ice without any adverse affects. And enslaving the mental faculties of three seemingly very bright Norwegians at the same time.” Stark’s gaze drifted over Sif, Hogun, and Fandral, who were clustered with Volstagg on the deck, no doubt getting acquainted with news of what they had missed in their sixteen months of being brainwashed.
Steve glanced at Natasha. She gave him a half shrug. “It’s a sound theory,” she said.
“Why do I feel like whenever she speaks well of me, I should get some sort of treat like a performing street animal?” Stark asked the deck at large.
Steve ignored him. “So let us say that Loki was the one that imprisoned Thor and me. Should we scour the island searching for clues of where the count might have gone?”
“It will be a fruitless task,” Thor said. “My brother is cunning. If he has gathered such a large crew, he means it to attack some large town.”
“The town with the best stronghold ’round these parts is Tortuga, and he’s already scavenged it. Could he be gathering an army to attack Port Royal?” Pepper, who’d finally joined them on the quarterdeck, asked.
“We would have had word if Port Royal had been his destination,” Natasha said. She eyed first Steve and then Thor and cursed the holes in their memories that could have possibly provided a satisfactory answer to these questions. “Perhaps it is somewhere out of the Caribbean.”
“But unfortunately that still leaves an entire world of possibility open to him,” Thor said.
“Yes.” Steve ran a hand over his face again. Natasha did not envy him the concept of waking from a sixteen-month sleep to face a problem of this magnitude. “And we have no way of knowing which city he might be looking to attack?”
“Or ship,” Pepper put in.
Steve only looked more tired.
“It’s not like we have a compass that points right at where Loki has gone, though,” Thor said, folding his massive arms over his chest. “Such a thing does not exist.”
Stark, however, frowned.
“It would solve most of our problems, were such a thing to be had,” Pepper said, nodding.
“A compass that did not point north would frighten the more superstitious on the ship,” Steve said. “Would you ladies mind if I…” He gestured helplessly at the lapels of his coat, which was still dripping wet even though it had been nearly an hour since he had been pulled from the ice. “I am afraid the time in the cold has made the garment shrink…”
“No one will be offended here, Steve,” Pepper said, patting him on the arm.
Natasha smirked with humor she didn’t feel. “Need any help?”
Steve blushed and sidled away a step as he removed his coat. “I’m quite well, thanks.” He set his coat off to the side. When he turned back around, Stark had begun to fumble with his own cravat. “I was not setting an example, Tony.”
“No, no, no. You wished for a compass that might point us to Loki, did you not?”
“I do not see how that has anything to do with disrobing, Stark,” Natasha said.
“I have one.”
“One what?” Thor asked.
“One such compass.” Stark undid the final fastening on his shirt, baring his chest to all of them. The shard of the Lyskilden embedded there glowed faintly even in the daylight. “On the night you came to rescue me aboard the Red Skull, I saw Loki bend as though he meant to scoop something up with his hand.”
“But Loki could touch nothing,” Thor said, squinting at Stark.
“Yes, and because I knew that, I convinced myself it must be a hallucination from the pain.”
Natasha frowned. After they had been stranded on an island and rescued by the Deviant, they had mutinied and mounted a rescue to save Stark. The newly christened Avenging Angel had been swifter than the Red Skull, Obadiah Stane’s ship, and they had approached from the leeward side of the ship, hoping to sneak upon the much larger frigate. They had sent Loki, whose curse allowed him to walk through walls, ahead to warn Stark that they were coming. Chaos had erupted during that battle. It had led to the Red Skull and its blood-splashed Jolly Roger sinking to the bottom of the ocean, nearly taking the demonic form of Bruce with it. Natasha had barely escaped with her life. The danger hadn’t been at the hands of her enemies, but at the hands of Bruce himself. Even she, who had the most experience fighting among the crew, did not have clear memories of that fated night.
“There was a lot happening that night, Stark,” she said. “It could still be a hallucination.”
“Then how is it there are multiple accounts of the man holding a scepter, Romanova, when we know for a fact that for two years aboard the Angel, he could not even wield a dessert fork?” Stark asked.
Natasha had to concede the point. “You think he picked up a shard of the Lyskilden and placed it into that scepter, and that it allows him to touch things?”
“My hypothesis is that yes, he did. The magic in the cavern you described, on the island today. It glowed blue.”
“It did.”
“And what other sorcerous thing do we all know of that glows blue? Going back to my earlier statement-” Stark began to redo the fastenings on his shirt. “-there cannot be too many explanations. I think, given time and the proper lenses to magnify the light of my own piece of the Lyskilden, I can build a compass that will let us gather the direction Loki has traveled. And as familiar with the currents as I am in this region, I may be able to take you, if not his destination, at least I can give you his bearings. It’s more than we have now.”
“What are you waiting for, then?” Steve asked. “Get to work.”
Stark gave him a very obnoxiously indifferent salute. “Aye-aye, Captain,” he said, and, grabbing Pepper’s sleeve, headed below.
“Have we extra clothing for the duke and myself?” Steve asked Natasha.
“No, but we’ve bolts of some cloth we were hoping to barter for information if we needed it.”
“I made my own clothes when I was a cabin boy. I suppose one doesn’t need to fall out of the habit.” Steve shrugged.
Thor, on the other hand, looked uncomfortable, and Natasha could rightly guess why. Being royalty, clothing was handled by tailors and seamstresses. Thor had had the greatest adjustments to make on the two years they had been aboard the Angel together, but he had adapted well. Some things still gave him pause, though.
“Perhaps Miss Lewis may be able to offer you aid,” Natasha said.
Thor’s face immediately cleared. “That is a wonderful idea, Lady Romanova-” For no amount of correcting him could convince him that every woman shouldn’t be addressed as ‘Lady.’ “-I shall ask her forthwith.”
He headed across the deck to do just that, leaving Steve and Natasha standing there alone.
“In truth, they’ll all need to sew their own clothing,” Steve said, looking at Thor’s three servants. “I recall setting sail with them in search of Loki, but after that, it grows…a bit dim, honestly.”
“It will come to you in time, I’ve no doubt. Orders for now, though?” Natasha said.
“As much as I’d like to sail on and put this island in our wake, we’ll give Tony some time to work on this mystical compass of his. No need to make sail and eventually have to turn around and retrace our steps.”
“Aye,” Natasha agreed. Since she spotted a deckhand that should have been in the bilge swabbing rather than on deck, she gave Steve a nod and started to head for the fo’c’sle. Steve, however, cleared his throat. “Something you need, Cap?”
“You haven’t said where Clint is, Natasha.” Steve regarded her seriously. “Is he…”
“He lives,” Natasha said, and she could see Steve visibly relax. “But he was taken by Loki during the attack on Tortuga. So now he’s on his way to becoming a Draugr.”
And if that happened…he might as well be dead.
Natasha’s stomach hurt.
“Tony’s compass will work,” Steve said, looking every bit confident in his assertion as Natasha felt doubtful.
“It had better,” Natasha said, and jumped down, striding off and determined to put the fear of the Romanov Dynasty into a random deckhand. It didn’t make her feel any better, but it gave her something to do.
8. The Reckoning
Natasha didn’t dine with the rest of the crew. She never offered a reason why. She merely took her portion of whatever was being served in the galley that day-usually ship’s biscuits, a serving of beer, and a cup of lemon juice-and retired quietly to her cabin to eat. Most days she did not eat, but the others did not need to know that.
She could recognize the signs that she did need to eat that day, though. The fight with Sif had taken a lot out of her, so that she could feel her body beginning to knit itself together and heal from the bruises and blows that had rained down upon her. Her ankle throbbed. It needed ice, but they had none of that to spare. Food would help her heal more quickly, but she simply did not want to eat.
She stared at the two ship’s biscuits on the plate in front of her as though with the power of her thoughts alone, she could change them into a fine broiled steak, the likes of which Volstagg might serve if one of the grass-fed cattle from the herd of Tortuga had been slaughtered for a visiting dignitary. Food well-prepared changed things somewhat, but most everything still tasted like ash on her tongue. The meal spread out in front of her was likely an insult to the human tongue to begin with, not even taking into account the curse that the shattered Lyskilden had laid upon Natasha.
A knock on her door made her look up. Stark never knocked, Pepper never bothered to visit, and Steve’s knock was usually a great deal less hesitant than that. Perhaps it was Thor. “Enter,” she said.
It was Jane, holding a hammered tin plate. The brunette looked in a bit nervously. “Thor said I would be able to find you here, and I thought you might like some company with which to break your fast?”
That was the last thing Natasha wanted to do, especially when she was already faced with the reality of needing to eat, but manners required that she invite Jane in. “I fear there isn’t much room.”
“It’s fine.”
“You may have the table, I’ll sit on the bunk.” Natasha collected her plate, waving vaguely with her free hand at the table.
She could tell that Jane was deeply uncomfortable, but the woman did seem determined. “I do apologize for the intrusion,” Jane said, rearranging her skirts around her legs as she sat. “But I wondered if I might… That is to say, I have a few questions and Thor, darling that he is…”
Because she had absolutely no choice in the matter, Natasha took a bite of the biscuit. Long practice kept her from grimacing at the dry taste. “What do you need to know?”
“If you wouldn’t mind telling me, I find I have a thirst to know about what happened to you five years ago. To all of you.”
“It’s a rather bloody tale, Miss Foster. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Jane, please. There is no need for formality in such close quarters.” Jane made a fluttery motion with her hand that told Natasha the brunette was still nervous, but trying to hide it. “The crew either calls you Natasha or Romanova, after all. And for now, I am doing my best to be part of the crew.”
Natasha studied her. “It is quite a different style of life to the one you’ve known.”
“But that does not mean I am not willing to give it my all.” Jane paused. “Natasha.”
Natasha inclined her head, acknowledging the attempt for what it was. But before she could reply, a light tap on the door made her look over. Pepper poked her head in. “Is there room for one more?” she asked.
Barely, Natasha thought, but she squeezed closer to the wall so that Pepper could sit next to her on the bunk. Pepper’s presence was a bigger surprise than Jane’s. Jane, she could understand, as the woman had questions. But Pepper had spent two years being polite and nothing more to Natasha. She’d acknowledged that Natasha had helped save Stark, but she hadn’t appreciated the lie that Natasha was nothing more than a fashionable lady’s maid. Natasha had long accepted that this was the way their relationship was to be.
“My apologies for the intrusion, but Jane had said that she planned to ask you about the Ferrous. I thought you might require assistance,” Pepper said. She eyed Natasha’s plate in a way that told her that either Stark or Pepper had put it together that the curse had affected Natasha’s appetite. Natasha put that aside. It did not matter to her what either Stark or Pepper thought.
“You are in good time,” she said. “Jane had just asked.”
Pepper nodded and took a bite, gesturing for Natasha to continue.
For a moment, she was at a loss for words. Russians could tell great, fluting stories of mysticism and the supernatural, stories that were bred into them so deeply that at times Natasha wondered if she would find the words etched into her bones. Before her fall into the hands of Ivan, she had heard such haunting tales of the Rusalka, young women scorned and unlucky in life and love, doomed to walk the earth and kill unsuspecting men that wandered close to their watery graves. That ability to tell a complete tale and captivate an audience, however, had completely passed her up.
She cleared her throat. “You’ve no doubt guessed from my name that I am Russian, though I do not sound it.”
Jane’s eyebrows shot up.
“So it is fairer to say that I was Russian, and now I am not anything. But even so, in Russia, it is very cold, so cold that when I think of Russia, I think of the cold. And I had…reasons for leaving behind the things I did, to put as much distance between my country and myself. I applied for the position of Lady Potts’s lady’s maid when I discovered she would be taking a voyage to Jamaica on the ship the HMS Ferrous. I was desirous of a warmer climate.”
A line appeared between Pepper’s eyebrows. “But you came to work for me over a year before the voyage.”
“I am patient,” Natasha said, shrugging.
“Evidently so,” Pepper said.
“In my time in service, I met James Barnes-Bucky. He was Stark’s valet. We had…a dalliance.”
“A dalliance?” Pepper gave her an amused look. “Natasha, you married him.”
Well, Natasha thought, that was one way to tell the story. At Jane’s startled look, she sighed. “You’ve heard tell of the Black Widow?”
“Yes, but surely it must be false?” Jane looked puzzled. “The tale sounds rather fanciful.”
Natasha had to concede the point a little with a brief shrug of one shoulder. She knew the tale, as it was passed around the villages in the Caribbean. The woman, so mourning her new husband, that she cut down multitudes of his would-be killers in the blink of an eye with naught but a cutlass, so fiercely that when she stepped into the a shaft of moonlight, blood turned her blue dress to black. The Black Widow, avenger of her dead love.
“Whatever true, whatever false, the title is real: I am indeed a widow. Bucky convinced me to marry him on the passage over to Jamaica. Hours before the Ferrous was attacked by the pirate king Obadiah Stane, even.”
“It was a lovely wedding,” Pepper said. “For what it’s worth.”
“Thank you,” Natasha said, and was surprised to find that she meant it. “But it didn’t last. Stane’s ship came up on our starboard, seemingly out of nowhere. Even the watchman on duty could not have spotted her.”
“It would have made nary a difference if Clint had,” Pepper said.
“Clint?” Jane asked.
Pepper looked at Natasha, expectantly.
“The missing piece in our crew for the Angel. Loki…took him in Tortuga.”
Pepper seemed, for a moment, like there was more to that statement that she wanted to add, but she settled back with a nod. Her plate, like Jane’s, was already empty. Natasha had a single biscuit left.
“That night, Stane called for a parlay. There was barely time for talks to begin before he broke parlay and opened fire,” Natasha said, keeping her voice level and emotionless.
“I thought parlay was law among pirates?” Jane asked.
“It is. Obadiah Stane was a wastrel of a human being, a blackguard of the highest order. Bucky was the first killed,” Pepper said, her voice quiet. “Stane was faster with the shot, and Bucky, he just fell over the side of the ship. And Natasha…”
“I lost my wits,” Natasha said. “I do not remember clearly, but they say I cut down forty men in my rage.”
“Forty?” Jane asked, looking pale.
“With Clint’s help, it was close to sixty,” Pepper said.
Memories of that night were fragmented at best for all of them, though on their time serving aboard the Angel, they had put together what they hoped was a reasonable time-line of events. Stark, at least, had badgered them until they had figured it out. Knowledge, he claimed, was the most important weapon in any arsenal.
Natasha, given her druthers, would rather forget about all of it. Stark could stick his knowledge where the sun had no business shining. “Clint watched my back, shooting any man that dared attack me from behind,” she said. “If Pepper says we killed sixty, then sixty men we did kill.”
“Sixty men? Were you already a witch?” Jane asked.
“I am cursed, but I am not a witch.”
“It’s not natural, the thing that cursed them,” Pepper said. “It was something Thor called the Lyskilden. He meant to make it a gift to you on your wedding day, so it was aboard the ship with us, in the care of Doctor Erik Selvig. We’d no idea of its true power.”
“It doesn’t seem like something that could curse a group of men, no. It’s aught as big as two fists held tight together, in the shape of a cube,” Natasha said. “It glows like firelight, but it glows blue. Thor claims it gives off no heat, but no man should touch it.”
“It glows? Like the cave today?” Jane asked.
“Aye,” Natasha said.
“But how? How did this Lyskilden curse you?”
Natasha moved a shoulder. “As best we can tell, Selvig dropped the Lyskilden when he was shot. Stark has a theory that somebody struck it with a blade.”
“And that broke this…artifact? This Lyskilden?” Jane asked.
“No. It caused a light like nothing I’d ever seen, like a powder keg had blown to the sky, but more intense. It hit all of us like a wave of water. Every man touched by that light was thrown to the deck.”
“Some did not survive,” Pepper said, her voice quiet once more.
Natasha thought of Steve’s love, lost to the sea. The explosion, if that was what it had truly been, had thrown her over the gunwale. She pushed Peggy Carter from her mind and focused more on Jane, trying not to think about how alike the two seemed and looked. Steve likely had already noticed, she realized. “It altered all of us in some way, we think. Loki became like a specter, unable to touch or be touched, a shade of a man. Banner, you saw the effects for yourself today.”
“The demon,” Jane said, crossing herself.
“To Thor, it gave the strength of ten men. Steve, the strength of five, and it gave him the build of a warrior. Clint can see as the eagles do, in dead of night as well as the plain of day.”
“And its gift to you?”
“I heal quickly, though not as quickly as Steve or Thor.” Natasha did not mention the side-effects: the waking dreams, the lack of appetite. “Stark and Pepper were too far away. They were not hit with the Lyskilden.”
“But…” Jane’s brow furrowed. Clearly, Natasha thought, she had seen Stark bare his chest to the entire crew.
“We fought well, but Stane’s men overcame us that night. They left us on a drowning ship and took Stark, who was their original target. He was injured. A mast fell on his leg.”
“The leg had to be amputated,” Pepper said.
“Oh,” Jane said.
“But that comes later. What crew was alive had to survive in the few dinghies that were undamaged in battle.” It had been a long, miserable three days without water until they had found the island that had been their exile and their salvation. “We were rescued by a man named Justin Hammer. He kept us on as crew.”
“Until we mutinied,” Pepper said.
Natasha gave her a long look, but Pepper was staring at her plate. Because Jane was gaping at the both of them, Natasha jerked a shoulder. “Captain Hammer was an incompetent boob who did not know how to treat a crew. Also, one of our own crew was held hostage by a man we knew to be dangerous. When Hammer refused to come to his aid as well, we had no choice but to mutiny.”
“It seems that Thor and I will need to have a talk about honesty,” Jane said. “He did not tell any of this.”
“Cheer up,” Natasha said with humor she didn’t feel. “He likely didn’t want you to know that he sailed under a pirate’s flag for two years.”
“Thor is-was a pirate?”
“If we are being candid,” Natasha said, “at the present, you could be considered a pirate, Jane.”
“W-what?”
“Steve’s flag is one considered by the Crown as a pirate’s flag. We are wanted men and women,” Natasha said. “We forcibly took the ship from Hammer to stage a rescue of Stark. We called it the Avenging Angel and ourselves the Avengers because we sail under its flag. The Crown considers us criminals. Our offense is a hanging one.”
“Even Thor?” Jane asked, looking pale.
“They do not know his true name, but he is a wanted man,” Pepper said, patting Jane on the arm. “His title will no doubt protect him should he ever come under scrutiny.”
That did not seem to reassure the brunette much, so Natasha continued with the recital, “With a full crew, the Angel is a much swifter ship than the Red Skull. We hunted relentlessly for months until we found the Skull. This time, the battle went in our favor.” Natasha felt a small, humorless smile twist her lips. “One could say that it all comes down to Banner and his demon. The crew of the Skull never stood a chance against a beast such as that.”
Natasha herself had nearly been listed among the casualties. When his demon came out, Bruce cared little for adversary or ally. In fact, he seemed to find something about her fascinating. Steve speculated that it was the color of her hair, which shone like a beacon in daylight or moonlight, that drew Banner’s attention. The beast had chased her all the way across the deck, smashing through anything that hindered his path.
It had eventually been enough to sink the Skull to the depths.
“There was another incident with the Lyskilden during the battle, before Bruce’s demon destroyed the Red Skull,” Natasha said. “Stane had a second in command, a man named Johann Schmidt. He used the attack as a cover to cross Stane. Stark says they fought, bitterly. Schmidt tried to strike the Lyskilden with his blade.”
“And?” Jane asked, looking very much like a small child clinging to the stories of ghosts told around campfires.
“And now Tony bears a piece of the Lyskilden in his chest,” Pepper said. “The Lyskilden does not take kindly to any blade used upon it. Tony was the only man to survive.”
“But surely something like that buried into his flesh should have killed him.”
“The Lyskilden is a great mystery. Instead of killing him, I do believe the shard enables that iron leg of his, and his arm brace, too, to work like a man’s arm,” Pepper said.
The door pushed open. Natasha’s hand twitched toward her knife, but it was only Stark poking his head into the cabin. “The amazing hearing, however, was a gift from birth,” he said.
“Something you wanted, Stark?” Natasha asked.
“I’ve calibrated the compass. We’ve a direction of our naughty count and missing rigger, and we’re about to weigh anchor.”
Relief made her want to sag, but instead, Natasha picked up her cup of lemon juice and quaffed it. It tasted as foul as she had suspected it would. “Thank you for the warning, Stark.”
He leered. “Anytime, Red,” he said. They heard the thump of his iron leg against the floor as he bounded off.
“I shall let you return to your duties. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions honestly, Natasha.”
“You could probably just call me Nat,” Natasha said without quite meaning to.
Jane gave her a nod and slipped from the room, leaving Pepper and Natasha behind. Though she was eager to get above-decks and assist in the ship’s departure, Natasha did not move to leave. She knew enough of Lady Pepper Potts to know that Pepper had something to say. It was better to let Pepper speak in private. If left ruminating for too long, the woman would blurt out any thought that crossed her mind.
“Thank you,” Pepper said, taking Natasha by surprise. “You could have been honest about the mutiny, and nobody would have faulted you for it.”
Natasha didn’t shrug, though it was a near thing. “I was honest. We made the decision to mutiny as a crew,” she said.
“At my prompting.”
“Pepper, we’re the stubbornest group of meanest cusses you’ll find walking this earth. If we decide we won’t do something, you could move heaven and earth and we would still be a’right where we planted our boots. Stark was one of ours. You may have pushed for mutiny, but we followed, and that was our choice.”
Pepper studied her for such a long moment that Natasha began to grow uncomfortable. She tamped down the desire to shift in place. “You do understand that Jane is going to realize that no common lady’s maid could possibly cut down forty men, even one in a rage. She will have questions.”
“They always do,” Natasha said.
“Who knows? Perhaps one day you will answer one of those questions.”
“I might,” Natasha said, though she doubted it. Only one person knew her secrets, and she was content with that-provided she could save him.
9. Tradition
Though the ship was never truly quiet, Natasha found she liked the evenings when the sun settled lazily into the west and the air chilled. A relative peace could be found at any time-false dawn, true dawn, even midday if the circumstances were right and the winds were bonny-but that space between day and night had always called to her. She supposed she was very much a creature of that time, never settling, always shifting.
Aboard the Angel, it meant that the evening crews would be rousing soon, the day crews ready to trade the deck for the hammock. The evening meal had been served, and the sailors were winding down. For herself, Natasha had choked down only what she would need to keep her strength. She normally didn’t mind the food on voyages, though even with Volstagg’s cooking, it tended to be plain fare. Lately, though, she hadn’t eaten much. If it had been any other woman, she might have called it wasting away. Since it was her, she called it disinterest and left it at that.
The breeze was calm but steady; hopefully, it would keep them going at their current pace through the night, and perhaps even pick up. If it didn’t, there wasn’t a thing she could do about it, so she didn’t dwell. The Angel might not have been the fastest ship on the high seas, but she was yare. Natasha told herself she wasn’t worried as she moved about the deck, checking sheets as she did so. She crawled onto the railing, wrapped one of her legs around a sheet to brace herself, and stared out into the sky that melted into a thousand colors at sunset.
Heavy footsteps on the deck alerted her that she was not alone. “Evening, Cap’n,” she said without looking.
She practically heard him give her that stiff nod. “Nat,” he said. “All well?”
“Aye,” she said, and this time, she did look back. “Should you not be hunkered over your maps with Stark?”
“It’ll keep. His compass seems to have everything in hand.” Steve smiled and stepped up to the railing, leaning his elbows against the top and bending forward to get a better look over the side. “She still sails,” he said, sounding like it was mostly to himself.
“Don’t tell him I said so, but Stark-and Pepper-the improvements they have made to the rigging, they help.”
“You look as though you’ve tasted something foul.”
“Aye,” Natasha said again, and turned to look back out at the horizon once again.
“I shall keep it in my confidence. Aught else on your mind?”
Natasha smiled the same frozen smile Steve had presented to her. Steve sighed and nodded as though he understood, and she figured that, of everybody aboard, he most likely did. Both of them turned when another set of footsteps joined them. It was Fandral, who’d fitted into the ship’s crew with ease after his months of being possessed. He looked guilty, an animal caught in sudden torchlight, a bowl of that night’s dinner in his hand.
“Volstagg claimed a second helping was not amiss,” he said.
He was likely finishing out the rest of her portion, Natasha surmised, and from the glance Steve gave her, he knew it, too.
“Is there so much of the stew leftover?” Steve asked.
“Aye, Volstagg made too much-not that that’s common, Cap’n, Sir, it’s just that he-”
“Fetch Volstagg and the rest of the victuals, and anybody belowdecks not asleep. It would be a shame to let good stew go to waste.”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” Fandral said, and scampered off.
Natasha thought that was going a bit far on Steve’s part in order to make sure one of his crew was eating enough, but she said nothing. It had been three days since Stark had finished his compass. Three days on the trail of Clint and Loki, and three days since she had last eaten.
She did need to eat. She knew it, but she ignored it.
Since the lure of second helpings would draw a crowd and she had no desire to climb to the crow’s nest for solitude, she took up a much better spot on the deck and waited for the others. Steve remained where he was, leaning against the railing and studying the horizon. What he saw, Natasha would never know. She and Steve, though they had reached an accord, did not actually understand each other on that level. It made for a good dynamic aboard the ship, but at times it did frustrate her.
The others trickled in, in twos and threes. Thor accompanied Jane and Darcy, the latter of whom dug into the second helping of stew with gusto. Coulson strolled up behind them, nodding quietly as he took his place on a gunwale. Stark came bounding up with Pepper in tow, followed by Bruce, who carried something Natasha could not quite make out in the dark. He sat on one of the gunwales and accepted the stew that Coulson passed his way. Sif was the last to join them, taking up a seat by Natasha and giving the other woman’s stew such a questioning look that Natasha obligingly took a bite. No matter that it tasted like sawdust on her tongue, she ate it all, and immediately felt queasy afterward.
Once the sounds of eating had quieted, Darcy cleared her throat. “May I ask a question? Is there anything to do on this ship that does not involve the ship itself?”
“What do you mean?” Thor asked.
“A play, or music, or a recital, or anything at all that is not ‘hoist this’ or ‘jigger that’ or any of that talk I still do not understand.” Darcy looked at the tips of her fingers as though tempted to lick them like she had seen some of the crew doing. “I do love a good play.”
“Music,” Bruce said, his voice soft in the darkness. “There used to be music every night.”
“No, no, I think Darcy’s idea holds some merit. Cap, surely there’s a thespian in that buttoned-up soul of yours.” Stark turned his obnoxious grin toward Steve. “Let us now hear your Hamlet, my Captain. Don’t be shy.”
“Perhaps another night, Stark,” Steve said, shaking his head. He gave Natasha an exasperated look.
Stark glanced over at Natasha with a decided gleam in his eye. “What say you, Red?” he asked. “We should be so lucky to hear your take on some of the great roles of the bard himself, should we not? You could be your very own Miranda at sea, or perhaps Desdemona, or-I know! We have a Lady Macbeth in our midst, do we not? ‘Come, you spirits, that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here’-”
“Anthony,” Pepper said, decidedly not amused.
But Stark had that gleeful look on his face that Natasha knew well. Internally she rolled her eyes. She knew the work as well as any other educated young lady. Stark’s words would not get to her.
“-‘And fill me from the crow to the toe top-full of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood’-”
“Truly,” Coulson said, his voice bland, “you have a fine memory, Sir Stark. For a scientist.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Stark asked, swinging in his direction.
“It means that perhaps we should have some music?” Jane said. “Clearly, Nat never desired a life on the stage, and we should respect that. Does anybody play or sing? I confess, my skills with the spinet are not much in handy at the present moment.”
The original Avengers tensed, though Natasha doubted Jane was noticed. During earlier voyages, there had been music almost every night. Songs sung in voices roughened by the salty air, of course, but more than that, there had been… Clint was clever with any bow, be it for arrows or strings. He’d made his violin weep or cheer, or whatever the crew needed. In that moment, Natasha felt his absence almost like a hole inside of her.
“There is always this,” Bruce said, fiddling with his spectacles so they caught the light. He shoved the box Natasha now recognized forward with one foot. Her stomach plummeted as Darcy leaned over to pull Clint’s violin from the box.
“Ooh,” she said, looking about eagerly. “Who plays?”
“Nobody,” Natasha said, her voice flat. Darcy’s face fell.
“Natasha plays,” Bruce said.
She glared at him. He looked completely unrepentant.
“Probably not very well,” Stark said, snorting. “Who would have time to learn when you spend your days glowering at wayward sailors, Romanova?”
“I know what you’re trying to do, Stark,” Natasha said.
“And?”
“And it won’t work. I won’t play.” She wouldn’t take Clint’s place.
“We could use a little music,” Fandral said. “We need more merriment!”
“I play the spoons,” Volstagg said before he hiccuped.
“Perhaps the captain would maybe let us have a drop or two of his private grog?” Stark asked. “Provided we convince Red over here to saw off a song or two.”
“You’re making it worse, Tony,” Pepper said.
“Tell you what, if Nat plays, I’ll send Fandral to my quarters to fetch us libations a-plenty,” Steve said, and a cheer echoed across the deck.
Natasha sighed because she could just see Clint among them, goading her with that smirk to pick up the fiddle so that others could have a drink. “Very well,” she said, and she took Clint’s beloved instrument from Darcy. It felt ancient and familiar in her hands, which fit, considering that it had been a gift from the same woman that had given Clint his bow. She rosined the bow and tested the strings, surprised to find them less out of tune than she would have suspected. Darcy watched eagerly, excited about the prospect of music. Natasha did not tell her not to get her hopes up: she was no magician at the violin. That was all Clint.
Fandral returned with the grog just as she finished tuning, but he also carried with him a small washboard, which he handed to Sif.
“Well?” Stark asked.
Clint had taught her how to play by ear, which was how he had learned. There had been only one set of sheet music he owned, though, which he had lovingly spread out in the private booth in the back room of Fury’s pub night after night as he taught Natasha the basics. If she closed her eyes, and she sometimes did, Natasha could see every line in the page and every inked note. She had it memorized, though, so she began to play.
Stark’s face, as the bow flew over the strings with the ease of long practice, was priceless. Natasha continued to play, her fingers stiff but finding their places on the strings with only a couple of minor gaffes. Arrival of the Queen of Sheba flowed into the night, making the pirates gape. Clint had never played this piece for them. He’d gamely rosined off every sea shanty Stark requested, had learned the accompaniment to the epic Norse ballads Thor sang with a gusty baritone, and there were always the songs favored by the Royal Navy that he already knew, the ones even Steve would sing. But this one, he had kept only for himself and Natasha, and now Natasha played it for him, absent from their circle.
“Oh, I’ve heard this,” Darcy said. “It’s Handel, I know it is-”
“Shh,” Pepper said.
Natasha didn’t precisely lose herself to music-she had the technical aspects of it memorized, but she had never been able to add the sweet soul that Clint infused into every piece he played-but she did close her eyes and enjoy the notes, the way they sounded, the way they looked in her head. As the final note reverberated, Natasha opened her eyes.
“You were saying, Stark?” she asked.
“A gentleman admits when he is wrong. Thankfully, there are none of those here,” Stark said, but his grin seemed almost apologetic.
“You are a true musician!” Thor said, his voice lighting up with delight. “You should have mentioned your skill with the fiddle, Natasha!”
“It’s nothing,” Natasha said.
“Do you know,” Hogun said, and broke off in a stream of Norwegian. Natasha considered herself something of a connoisseur of foreign tongues-nothing could match Russian for sheer beauty-but it always seemed to her that Norwegian was a bit like sneezing.
“Come now, friend,” Thor said, laughing as he clapped Hogun on the back. “Do be kinder to our esteemed First Mate. What he means to ask you is if you perhaps know the tune to The Thirteenth Ballad of Heimdall, Most Exalted and Respected Guardian and Gatekeeper of the Bifröst Bridge Between Our World and Theirs, Fierce Warrior and Friend?”
“Oh, very well, Lord Asgard,” Fandral said, reaching for the pitcher of grog. “Use its short name, then.”
“Short name?” Jane asked under her breath.
“Er, no, I’m afraid I don’t know that,” Natasha said. When the faces of all four Norwegians fell, she hastened to add, “Yet.”
“Why don’t we start with something else?” Steve asked.
“Yes. A jig, perhaps, a good one befitting proper pirates.” Darcy bounced, and Natasha wondered how much the captain’s good grog she had sneaked.
“Not sure you’ll find any proper pirates here, but…” Natasha found her stare meeting Bruce’s as she maneuvered the violin back into place under her chin. This time, when she began to play, the tune was lively and gay. Darcy immediately giggled and climbed to her feet; Volstagg picked up the spoons and kept time, which made it easier for Fandral, Pepper, and Bruce to stomp along in time. By the time Darcy had hauled Stark to his feet to dance with her, Sif had picked up the washboard. Stark’s iron leg stomped heavily on the off-beats, which made Natasha grateful that the crew slept beneath the quarterdeck on the opposite side of the ship.
When the whistling began, she assumed an idiotic bird had decided to sing along. She looked over to find that it was actually Steve, who had pulled a wooden flageolet from somewhere on his person and was playing along. She raised her eyebrows at him, and he shrugged back. Apparently, she hadn’t been the only one to pick up a new talent on their time apart.
Coulson, goaded by Pepper, finally began to sing. “Oh,” he sang in a surprisingly clear tenor, “they say I’ve a lass in every port, but you know I’m a jolly good sort-me ma, she raised me a’right, taught me how to kick and to spit and to fight-”
“Me da,” the rest of the men sang with him, “he was never a’round, go on to the pub-there, you’ll find him drowned, in a flagon of ale as big as a whale-but me, I’m a jolly good sort!”
There were either seventeen or eighteen verses, depending on the inebriation of the singer. Coulson knew most of them, apparently. When he wasn’t playing the pipe, Steve joined in-he loved the verses about the kraken, which fit into Natasha’s theory that Steven Rogers was just a tiny bit mad-and the “jolly good sort” narrator’s fourth kill fit the bill for Darcy’s “proper pirate song” request.
That song faded into another ditty, and a Navy chant for Steve, and a Norse folksong with which Thor could serenade Jane, who blushed prettily through the whole thing. By the time they rolled into another pirate song, Natasha’s fingers were burning on the strings, but she played on. It was like keeping Clint’s spot in the group alive. She could give up the fact that she normally would have gotten a dance from Bruce, and even one from Stark, or sung along with Pepper, if it meant keeping Clint on the crew somehow.
When she saw the exhaustion beginning to leak through, and limbs growing sluggish, she began to play a low, keening song. She knew from the way that they stilled that they recognized it, but nobody said a word. They listened, letting the Romani song echo into the night all around them. Clint had never told them its name. If there were words, he had never sung them. They knew only that it came from his past, but that it was also his favorite. The last note stayed on the wind, rippling through the mast and the deck, and for a second, it was like he was sitting there among them, smiling.
Slowly, the note and the feeling faded. Natasha lowered the violin with aching fingers, giving a small smile.
“We’ll get him back,” Steve said, and the others nodded, somberly. Natasha looked at Thor, wondering for the thousandth time how he felt, knowing his brother had caused this. But the duke looked mournful, like the rest of the crew. Steve tucked the flageolet away. “But for now, I say that it’s time we say good night. We’ve a long day tomorrow, and a new day brings a new tide.”
That it did, and with any luck, Natasha thought as she handed the fiddle back to Bruce, that tide would bring her closer to Clint.