FIC: Rascals, Scoundrels, Villains, and Knaves (5/5) (for icecream_junkie) - PG-13

[cybermathwitch]

Title: Rascals, Scoundrels, Villains, and Knaves, Part IV
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





13. An Old Friend and an Old Enemy

When Clint began to climb, Natasha streaked across the deck. Relief had threatened to turn her joints to jelly, but she shoved the feeling away. Clint was himself. He had looked at her and it had been him, so fundamentally Clint, that she’d wanted to do something foolish, like leap on top of him and forget the battle. But there were still others enslaved by Loki’s trickery, and even worse, there were Draugr. Battles did not stop for personal feelings.

When she looked over, Thor was taking on a group of five or six Draugr, knocking the giant beings gleefully about with that hammer of his, while Steve fought two or three. Sif, Hogun, and Fandral, with the strength gained from Loki’s curse, fought alongside the duke and the captain.

Tony, on the other hand, had split off from the group, repeating pistols firing in quick succession of each other. “Behind you,” she said. Tony turned and shot down a Draugr full in the chest with his arm-pistol. He yanked a gun belt from his torso and tossed it to her. She caught it and gave him a startled look.

“What?” Tony asked. He winked. “Just looking out for my friend.”

“I would like to retract almost every awful thing I have said about you,” Natasha said as she buckled the gun belt around her hips.

“Only almost?”

Natasha spun in place to deliver a kick to the jaw of a slave that was mostly human. The woman fell to the deck; Natasha wasted no time finding her mark and slicing it apart. “Oh, come now, complete forgiveness is not in my character, Stark. Has there been sign of Loki?”

“None. The coward has likely hidden below.”

“He’s a shade,” Natasha said, drawing her first gun and taking a Draugr down with a shot to the head. She tossed the gun to the side, as it wasn’t a repeating pistol like Stark’s. “Nothing can touch him. By all rights, he should be here gloating.”

“Since when have Loki’s actions made sense compared to those of any other man?” Tony asked.

Natasha wrapped her legs around the neck of an unfortunate Draugr and brought the hilt of her cutlass smashing down on the back of his head until he staggered enough to fall to his knees. She rolled out of her fall and swiftly beheaded him, which sprayed both her and Tony with dark green blood.

“Uch! Romanova! Must you do that? This coat is freshly tailored.”

“Remind me to bite my thumb at you later when it’s not covered in Draugr guts.”

“Madam, I look forward to it.”

She heard Sif’s cry-more annoyed than distressed-and raced off to help the other woman. On the way, she used a thigh hold to bring another human slave to the deck. He was almost Draugr by his strength alone and he managed to backhand her even as she cut his tattoo. She fell onto the deck, stars exploding at the edges of her vision. When she looked up, there was a Draugr swinging its cudgel toward her head. She rolled; the Draugr fell, an arrow with bright red fletching sticking out of the back of its neck.

She instinctively looked to the mast. Clint gave her a nod, not even looking as he fired off a shot. One of the Draugr fighting Fandral stumbled into the gunwale, an arrow in his eye. There was a splash as the beast fell overboard. She nodded back and hurried on.

Hogun had blood streaming from a cut above his lip, but he grinned at Natasha when she appeared. “How ye doin’, Red?”

“I cannot let you have all the fun,” she replied, and threw a knife between the eyes of a charging Draugr. When Hogun winked, she shook her head and ran to assist Coulson, who nodded his gratitude even as he lopped off the arm of one of the enemy. Draugr poured from below, swarming from all directions, smashing anything that got in their way, including the ship’s capstan. Some fell by sword, some by pistol, and even more by arrow, but they still came. Natasha began to grow weary. Even the adrenaline could not push her so far, not when her hand burned like the forge of Hephaestus himself, and her muscles screamed from overuse.

Beside her, Steve was panting, one hand over a slice in his side. “They never stop coming,” he said.

“Chin up, Cap’n. If we die, a battle this large is bound to become a story in some pub somewhere.”

“Oh, that heartens me greatly.”

Natasha dodged the thrusting stabs from a Draugr that had obviously been some sort of a blacksmith. She whirled, smacked the flat of her blade against his calf to distract him so that Steve could cut off the beast’s head. When she turned, she paled. “Trouble approaching.”

Steve spun and took a deep breath. “As ever, you are the master of understatement.”

Draugr came at them in a wave, a giant group that crawled over anything in their path in order to get to the Avengers. These were beasts that had finished the full transformation, she saw. Though they wore regular clothing and there were traces of humanity in their faces, their skin was a waxy, sullen green-gray and they were tall and powerful. “What do you think?” Natasha asked. “You fight the forty-two on the left, I’ll take the forty-two on the right?”

Coulson strode up, fussily wiping at his bloodied hands with a handkerchief. Without taking his eyes off of the oncoming horde of murderous creatures, he said, “It seems Lord Jotunheim has been busy.”

“Ho, what’s this? You thought not to include me?” Tony appeared between Natasha and Steve. “I cannot let the two of you have all the sport.”

“So is this to be a game?” Thor came striding up, wiping at a bloody nose with the back of his hand.

“The person who can shoot the most never has to buy drinks again,” Clint called from the yardarm.

“Kills, not shoots, and-” Tony broke off as a roar cut through the air, even louder than the boom and rattle of the cannons. “Well, now we’ve all lost. I hope we all look forward to paying for Doctor Banner’s drinks for the rest of our lives, mates.”

The entire boat shook, making half of the Avengers stumble. Steve craned his neck toward the Angel and was therefore the only one of them with enough warning. He tackled Natasha and Tony out of the way just in time for Bruce Banner, currently very large, very green, and very angry, to land upon the deck where they had all been standing a second before. The boat shuddered again.

Natasha felt that Tony’s not-so-soft curse aptly summarized her feelings about the change in situation.

But instead of immediately trying to beat them with fists the size of a yuletide goose, the demon let out a giant snort. In a guttural voice that sounded nothing like Bruce’s, he said, “Smash monsters?”

For a moment, there was shock. They’d never heard the demon speak before. Steve recovered first. “Yes,” he said, nodding his head vigorously. He pointed at the wave of Draugr coming toward them. “Smash monsters!”

The demon grinned, its teeth glinting in the light of the fires already started aboard the ship. Real, sadistic pleasure practically lit up its face from inside. “Hulk smash!” it said, and leapt into the crowd, giant arms swinging.

“It has a name?” Tony asked for all three of them.

“Appears so, aye,” Steve said. He lunged to his feet. Before Natasha was sure what he was doing, he’d picked up the flat piece of metal that had sat atop the destroyed capstan and had flung the discus into the crowd of Draugr. Natasha flipped to her feet in time to watch it send four of five Draugr crashing to the deck. “Need a boost, Nat?”

“Aye,” Natasha said. She stepped into Steve’s cupped hands and leapt, snatching one of the dangling lines from the yardarm. Though she didn’t need the help, Clint reached down and hauled the rope up until she could grab the beam. She nodded her gratitude. No other words were needed: Clint turned and began firing arrows into the mob of Draugr, and Natasha sprinted along the yardarm until she reached the mastpole. With her knife, she cut one of the lines, gritted her teeth as she wrapped the line thrice around her injured hand, and leapt.

The rope dropped her clear into the other side of the crowd, fighting closer to the Hulk. Her smaller size put her at a severe disadvantage in a crowd this large, but she cared little. She was far more agile than the Draugr. Even fatigued, she managed to be faster, picking off one Draugr at a time while the Hulk roared and tossed the undead beasts like a court juggler. His laughter sent chills down her spine that she tried to ignore.

She got flashes of the others fighting as she battled on. Steve used the capstan lid like a shield, flinging it at his enemy and using it to block strikes in turn. Tony continually swapped pistols. Coulson’s face never changed, even when he beheaded and de-limbed Draugr alike. Thor, on the other hand, looked positively gleeful as he smashed his hammer into the adversary, and the mirth was echoed in the expressions of his comrades. Half of Natasha’s opponents were felled by arrows to the eye socket.

When it happened for the fifth time, she wheeled in place and called, “Do you not want me to have any fun, Barton?”

“This is where you say ‘thank you,’” he called back, and ran in the other direction on the yardarm to shoot three arrows at the same time, taking out three of Fandral’s attackers in the same shot.

At this rate, she thought as another Draugr charged, he would run out of arrows soon.

The Hulk plucked the charging Draugr from the ground and hurtled it into the sea. Natasha had to bite her tongue before she could point out to the beast that she was perfectly capable of fighting her own battles. When she turned to take on another opponent, however, she was batted to the side by one of the Hulk’s platter-sized fists. She skidded across the deck, colliding solidly with the gunwale.

Three green shards of crystal sprouted in the pole behind where her head had been a second before.

And then the laughter began, laughter that she recognized well. She turned and Loki was standing there in the midst of the fighting, looking as though he hadn’t aged a single day in the years they’d been separated.

“Loki!” Thor crashed through the crowd. He raced straight for the Count of Jotunheim, hammer already swinging. “Cease this madness at once!”

Loki’s grip tightened on the scepter and for a second, the shade seemed to blink from existence. Thor crashed straight through his brother, stumbling when he met no resistance. He tumbled to the deck and rose slowly to his feet, anger displayed in every line of his face. Loki, on the other hand, seemed amused. “Are you ever going to not fall for that?” he asked idly.

“Cease this madness,” Thor repeated, pointing at the ongoing battle all around them. “Call off your beasts. You’ve lost, brother.”

“I’ve hardly lost, brother.” There was something vicious in the way Loki said the word that made Natasha’s eyebrow rise. She climbed warily to her feet. Though the sight of Loki filled her with a sort of rage she didn’t want to acknowledge-the bastard had tried to take Clint from her and turn him into a monster-there was something amiss. Why would Loki show his face on the deck? Why now? What was the shade’s aim?

She was distracted from her thoughts by a heavy tap on her shoulder. “Hulk bored,” the giant green man next to her said.

“Oh.” Natasha looked about and finally spotted a couple of Draugr that weren’t being handled by the others. She gestured to them. “Smash?” she asked. She was rewarded by another one of those terrifying grins before the Hulk did another deck-rattling jump and went to go punch his way through a group of the enemy.

She felt Clint land next to her, an arrow nocked and aimed at Loki’s head. “About time he showed his cowardly face,” he said in an undertone.

“Convenient, no?” Natasha twisted to look around, though she doubted she could locate the reason Loki had picked this moment and not a moment sooner. “What can be his-”

“Very well,” Loki said, cutting her off. He had all of his attention focused on Thor. “You wish the madness to cease?”

He snapped his fingers. Instantly, every Draugr on the deck turned toward him and dropped to one knee, heads bowing in supplication.

“Erm.” Tony, who had his gun raised, slowly lowered it. His eyes tracked to the shade. “This is an unexpected turn.”

“Sir Stark,” Loki said. He spread his hands wide like a host greeting his dinner guests. “Welcome aboard my ship. She is a fine vessel, no? Not quite up to the standards of those produced in the Stark shipyards, but a seaworthy little gem nonetheless. I call her the Trickster.”

Tony glanced around the deck and the obvious swath of the Hulk’s destruction across the deck. “Yes,” he said, flipping his hand so that the gun from the brace slid back into his arm. “Clearly a fine vessel. It is likely even nicer without the splinter currently driving its way through the sole of my boot.”

“This is how you repay my hospitality? With sarcasm and trite words? Come, come. Are we not colleagues? Did we not sail for two years under the command of Captain Rogers here? Surely that must count for something.”

“You’re right,” Clint said to Natasha as the others warily moved among the kneeling Draugr, circling around Loki. “Something is amiss.”

“This is what you call hospitality?” Steve asked. “You’ve had your demonic slaves trying to kill us all night!”

“What’s a trifling death threat amongst friends, Captain?” Loki took a step forward and flickered between corporeal and shade. Natasha heard a few surprised gasps. For a fleeting second, Loki looked annoyed, but the expression vanished as quickly as it came. He spread his hands once more. “Yes, that’s a nasty habit of mine, you’ll find. Not all of us were blessed when the Lyskilden made her choices.”

“Yes, let us speak of the Lyskilden.” Tony strode forward, dusting his hands off. “Specifically, let us talk of where she is. Below, perhaps? Or is she still on the island?”

“It seems I never gave you enough credit,” Loki said. “You are far cleverer than you seem.”

“And handsome, as well, but we try not to dwell on that, lest I develop a stuffed head. So what now, Lord Jotunheim? We are here. We have come like the dogs you think we are, so you should bring the Lyskilden out like a good little count, so that we may get on with things that need doing.”

“But you are mistaken. The Lyskilden is not here.”

“Enough,” Thor said. “Enough of this farce, Loki. It is time for you to come home, brother.”

“Where I will face a trial for my crimes?” Loki asked, turning slightly in place. He shook his head. “But how do you imprison a man whom no bars can hold, Lord Asgard? You cannot, though I grant you leave to try.”

That, Natasha thought, was essentially their problem, and had been so all along. How did you battle an enemy that you physically could not touch? Clint’s salt-tipped arrows, which he had used to slay many of the monsters Fury tried hard to keep the people of the Caribbean from discovering, were useless against Loki. No shackles could hold him, no wall could halt him. He felt no pleasure or pain, so it was impossible to tempt or punish him.

“The Lyskilden, Loki,” Steve said, his voice hard. “Where is it?”

“Yes.” Tony gave Loki a bright smile. “Don’t make us set our Hulk on you.”

As one, they turned to look at the Hulk, who gave a bored snort that made Sif and Fandral edge away from him. The giant green demon poked one of the prone Draugr and snorted again when the beast did not move.

“Your Hulk has no power over me, foolish mortals,” Loki said, but Natasha detected a wavering note in his voice.

Apparently Tony heard the same note. “Can you control when you are tangible and when you are not? Or does the scepter do that?”

“Ah, yes. My scepter.” Loki tossed it from hand to hand, twirling it as he considered the faintly glowing blue tip. “You have no doubt surmised that I, too, have a piece of the Lyskilden, Sir Stark. What you have not discovered, I think, is the power this piece contains.” He placed his hand over the tip of the scepter and for a moment, he stood before them, as real and solid as any of them. When he withdrew his hand, he was mostly transparent once more. “That, yes, but there is a deeper power at work. I think, with another piece of the Lyskilden so close…”

He closed his hand around the shard once more. This time, however, he did not flicker into existence; instead, a glowing halo of bright blue light encircled his hand. Natasha put a hand up to shield her eyes. “Indeed,” Loki said, mostly to himself. “Indeed.”

“What are you doing?” Steve asked, stepping closer to Loki.

The count ignored him, stepping close to the gunwale to peer over the side of the ship. Natasha could sense that Clint was close to taking his chances and putting an arrow through the noble’s back, but the man’s hand never twitched on the bowstring. “Aha, I knew it,” Loki said.

“Excellent,” Tony said. “Care to share this observation with the rest of us, perhaps? Some of us-well, mostly it’s just Rogers-are feeling a bit lost.”

Steve shot him a dirty look.

“Patience, and you shall see for yourself,” Loki said.

Coulson sidled up to Natasha and Clint, so that he was closer to Loki than the rest of them. “Why do I not feel comforted by this?” he asked idly.

Clint and Natasha shrugged. A splash made them all look at the side of the ship. The Hulk, who’d evidently just tossed a Draugr overboard, gave them a challenging look. After a beat, they turned back to where Loki was leaning over the gunwale, glowing scepter held out over the water.

“Yes, yes, that’s very pretty, Loki-” Tony started to say.

“Aha!” Loki let out a triumphant cry and punched the air with his fist.

From beneath the water’s surface came another blue glow. It was faint at first, so faint she convinced herself that her vision was playing tricks upon her, but the glow increased in intensity, spreading and then narrowing until it was a single pinprick in the water. A chill spread through her, cold seeping so deeply into her very bones that she knew in that moment she might never be warm again.

“The Lyskilden,” Clint breathed, as though not a soul aboard the Trickster could possibly know what it was.

Natasha, on the other hand, frowned. How was it rising through the water? Was it magic? The point of light was wavering, as though somebody was carrying it, which made no sense. When the Lyskilden finally broke the surface, though, she forgot all of her questions. Instead, just like the rest of the crew, she stared.

That was not possible.

She heard Steve’s shaky intake of breath. She couldn’t even imagine how he felt in that moment. It was enough of a punch to the stomach for her, and she’d barely known the woman. For indeed, in the water beneath the ship, the Lyskilden cradled to her chest, was a woman. She was very much not dead, but neither, Natasha saw, was she alive. In the moonlight, Natasha could see lines-gills-on the woman’s neck beneath the hair that fell all the way down the woman’s back and to a giant tail that glistened with scales like a fish’s.

“A mermaid?” Coulson asked, sounding as if he were asking about the weather.

“Peggy,” Steve whispered.

Peggy Carter, who had been dead for five years, opened her arms wide. The Lyskilden floated free of the water as if blown on a very strong wind. It drifted up the hull of the Trickster, toward the shocked group standing by the gunwale and staring into the water.

“Am I to understand that Loki getting his hands on that blue box would be catastrophic?” Coulson asked Clint and Natasha.

Natasha tore her eyes away from Peggy to nod. “I fear if he figures out how to harness the power of the full Lyskilden, as he did with the shard, he would be nigh unstoppable.”

“Very well.” Coulson turned and headed toward Loki with his cutlass drawn and a resolute look on his face.

“Coulson-no!” Clint said, lunging for their colleague. His shout caused Loki to turn even as Coulson raised his blade.

The Norseman vanished. Coulson finished his swing, his sword embedding itself into the side of the ship. Below, in the water, Peggy Carter let out an unearthly screech. Natasha caught a glimmer of fins in the corner of her eye as the mermaid vanished into the water-Tony grabbed Steve before he could jump overboard-Loki reappeared behind Coulson. Before any of them could stop the shade, he materialized completely and stabbed the scepter up and through Coulson.

“No!” They lunged forward as one, though what they hoped to do, Natasha had no idea. She watched in horror as Coulson’s eyes widened and the man slowly, slowly looked down at the scepter sticking through his chest.

“Shouldn’t have done that,” he said in a gasping, wrenching voice.

“Why not?” Loki’s smug smile made Natasha snatch up her final gun and take aim. “You mean nothing to me, mortal. I have thrice the power that you-”

Coulson grabbed the tip of the scepter sticking out of his chest and squeezed. There was a flash of blue light like an explosion, so much like the explosion Natasha remembered from the Ferrous five years before. It threw her back; she landed on one of the dead Draugr, half under Clint. When she scrambled to her feet in disbelief, however, nothing had been destroyed.

Coulson was transparent.

Loki, standing next to him, was completely opaque.

The rest of the Avengers were a little slower in climbing to their feet. “Can anybody explain what has just passed?” Fandral asked for all of them. He pointed at the Lyskilden, which was still hovering beside the boat at eye-level. “And how came that box to float upon the air?”

Another pause followed, and then chaos erupted. Loki abandoned the scepter and sprinted for the Lyskilden even as all of them raced for him.

The Hulk got there first.

The first smack of Loki being slapped into the deck made Natasha wince, even if the bastard had it coming. The second crunch made Clint snicker. By the third, Tony had grabbed a twisted piece of metal from the battle and was using it as a pair of makeshift blacksmith tongs to pull the Lyskilden from the air. Steve was frantically hurrying up the side of the ship, searching the water in vain for any sight of Peggy. Natasha took in the sight of the rest of the Avengers and decided Steve needed her most, so she touched Clint on the shoulder and went to the captain.

The Draugr all began to rise to their feet. Instantly, Natasha raised her sword, swearing.

“Halt!” Coulson’s voice cut through the night. She turned to see him holding the scepter, which was glowing once more. “I did that. The Draugr are mine to command now-they won’t harm anybody.”

“Are you certain?”

“Aye, First Mate Romanova. They’re under control. Captain Rogers.” Coulson turned to Steve. “The ship is yours.”

The Hulk tossed Loki, now very bruised and battered, into a heap on the deck and snorted. “Puny shade,” he said, and lumbered off to the other side of the ship, where he promptly destroyed a pile of rigging by sitting upon it.

Steve tore his gaze from the sea and gave the deck, covered in the remnants of death, destruction, and chaos, a long look. His gaze lingered even longer on Coulson, who was the same ghostly shade of transparent Loki had been. Unlike the Norse count, though, there was no hatred evident on the man’s face. In fact, Coulson was very fastidiously adjusting the folds of his fine coat over his chest. With a shrug, Steve turned to the rest of them. “Uh, I guess that’s that.”

“Oh, thank the stars,” Tony said. He was still holding the Lyskilden in the tongs, but he was grinning, obviously relieved. “I confess, I am famished. Anybody else? I wonder if this ship has any good victuals below-decks.”

The idea was met with several cheers from the crew, but it did not slip Natasha’s notice that Steve’s gaze went directly back to the sea.

14. Blowback

Later, after the sails of the Angel had all been furled and the anchor dropped, Natasha found Steve precisely where she expected to find him. He had to keep up appearances, though, which meant he could not in good conscience stay upon the fo’c’sle, peering into the depths of the ocean for all hours. The crew would begin to talk. Even a crew so used to the supernatural this one had superstitions that must be navigated. Steve, growing up in the Navy, knew better than most. The captain’s quarters had the best windows from which to watch the sea.

So Natasha, hand freshly bandaged by a sheepish and human Bruce, knocked twice on the cabin door before she poked her head in. “Might I have a word, Cap’n?”

Steve stood at the windows, his arms across his chest. “If you mean to discuss what I think you do, I find I’m rather busy, Nat.”

Natasha weighed the consequences in her mind and shrugged them away. She stepped into Steve’s cabin and closed the door behind her. “Begging your pardon, but I think of the two of us here, I know my mind better than you. So I’ll speak my piece.”

“I don’t need to hear it.”

“She didn’t recognize you, Steve.”

Steve said nothing.

“If that-that creature-”

“She is no creature, Natasha.” Steve didn’t turn, didn’t raise his voice, but there was a quiet threat to his words anyway.

“She did not recognize you,” Natasha repeated. “She is not the woman you once knew, Steve. That woman is gone. She died five years ago on the Ferrous, same as Bucky.”

“How do you know?” Now Steve did turn. His eyes were red, though his face was dry. “How do you know? I thought her dead. For years, I thought her dead, and she was there, just there in the water. It was her. You cannot deny that.”

“It was a creature with her face. If that were truly Peggy Carter, she would have acknowledged you.”

“Did Clint acknowledge you tonight before you broke the curse?” Steve’s eyes cut accusingly to the snowy white bandage around her hand.

She did not move the bandaged hand from his sight, though she did stiffen slightly. “Aye, he did. I saw an expression in his eyes when he first failed to kill me. It was fleeting, but it was there.”

“And what was it, I wonder?”

“Relief, sir. That was how I knew he was not full Draugr.”

Steve said nothing for a moment. “Even so, this is a world we little understand, Natasha. I killed men tonight that were already dead, men as strong and stronger than myself. Others would call those demons, but they fought with swords like a normal man. I captain a ship with a man possessed, a man with the strength of ten, a man with the eyes of a hawk, a woman who heals like none I have seen, and a man with iron limbs that should rust away but work like actual limbs, and myself. I have the strength of five men. Now I have a shade of a man who used to be solid and real among my crew, the man who used to be a shade is a man once more, and you tell me it is impossible that my Peggy could be like your Clint?”

Natasha nearly blinked; it was certainly the most she had ever heard from Steve in one breath. The ex-lieutenant preferred short, pithy statements to the soliloquy. “Steve,” she said, letting her sympathy show in her voice for once. “Steve, Clint was controlled by Loki. Peggy’s changes, they would have been caused by the Lyskilden.”

“And Coulson reversed Loki’s curse just tonight. It is possible.”

“Is it? A man is still cursed. It is a different man, to be sure, but he is just as cursed as Loki was.”

“Then I shall find somebody else to take Peggy’s curse.” Steve turned back to the window.

“Do you feel Peggy would approve of you condemning another to that life in her stead? You know she would not, Steve.”

“Damn your bones, Natasha!” Steve punched his fist into the wall, which of course dented the beam. “Do you expect that I could just go on with my life when I know that she is out there? There is a chance!”

“How will you find her, Steve?”

“The scepter-”

“Turned a perfectly respectable Norwegian count into a madman with a stick,” Natasha said, folding her arms over her chest. “The Lyskilden has brought us nothing but pain. You know in your heart that turning to it will only lead to more pain. It belongs in Norway, in the cave Thor pulled it out of when he had the idiotic notion to present it to Jane as a wedding present.”

Steve fell silent for a long time. She could read the tension and anguish in the tautness of his shoulders and his back, but he did not look at her. She couldn’t help but be grateful. No matter how much she believed what she was saying, the fact that she needed to say it and hurt a man she considered a friend and a colleague brought pain to her midsection that she did not care to examine closely.

So she stood her ground and she waited.

“I would like to be alone, please,” Steve said. The order in the words was too final to ignore.

“Aye, aye.” Natasha paused by the door anyway. “I have one more thing to say. If you do decide to do this, if you go after her, I’m with you every league of the way, Cap’n.”

He gave her a bewildered look, and she thought of him, of Bruce and Clint, and of Loki, all men lost and trying to grasp at anything they could touch because of what the Lyskilden had done to them. “Even though you think me foolish?” Steve asked.

“Not foolish, Cap. Just human.” Natasha gave him a sad smile and let herself out of the cabin. Outside the door, she stopped to take a deep breath. She hadn’t been close with Peggy Carter aboard the Ferrous. They were the most similar in class and age, supposedly, but they had never connected. If she had to be honest, the only people she had felt any connection to aboard that boat had been Bucky and Clint.

If Peggy was a mermaid, did that mean Bucky…

No. She was the Black Widow. Her late husband was dead. He had been out of the way long before the Lyskilden had shattered, and thoughts like that would only drive her mad. She allowed herself a moment to gather her wits and her nerves and headed into the depths of the Angel. Most of the crew was still above-decks, likely seeing to those captives of Loki’s that had not been made into full Draugr. Nobody knew if their strength would fade or if they would remain that way for the rest of their lives. Sif, Fandral, and Hogun certainly showed no signs of fading strength.

Two hours after Coulson had been turned into a shade, Natasha let herself into the bilge level of the Angel and looked about until she found Loki, shackled to the wall with a tired Bruce and Hogun standing guard over him.

“Gentlemen, if I could have a moment alone with the prisoner?” she asked.

“Certainly, my lady,” Hogun said, executing a short bow.

Bruce, on the other hand, gave her a questioning look. “I will not touch him,” Natasha said, smiling at the doctor. “How do you feel?”

“Oh-fine, fine.” With one final sheepish look, Bruce shuffled off to the other side of the hold with Hogun.

Loki did not look good, Natasha realized. The beating from the Hulk had left a giant bruise on one cheekbone, and his clothing was tattered, both from the battle on the Ferrous five years prior and from the Hulk. One eye was already beginning to swell an angry red.

He looked at her balefully out of his good eye. “Come to gloat, Your Highness?”

“Not at all. As first mate, it is my duty to oversee the hospitality to any guests that might find their way aboard the Angel. Granted, you likely won’t be here long-” Thor had already begun to make noises about taking both the Lyskilden and Loki back to Norway. “-but while you’re aboard, you’re my responsibility. Is there aught I can do to make your stay with us more comfortable?”

“You could release me at once.”

“I’m afraid I lack the key to do that, Lord Jotunheim.”

“Ah, yes, you mewling quim, as ineffectual at your promises as your threats, I see.”

The insult nearly made Natasha snicker. Instead, she squatted, crouching down to Loki’s level. There was a meter of space between them, but his shackles kept him bolted to the bulkhead. “Clint told you about my past.”

“He sang it happily and sweetly from the tops of his little bird lungs, he did. He fell over himself to please me, to tell me stories of the great Grand Duchess of Russia, one of the Lost Sisters of Elizabeth. Taken by a vengeful half-brother as punishment to the king, trained to kill and to betray, the only thing a woman is truly good for.”

The barb edged more deeply under her skin than she cared to admit. How much was truth and how much of that was a lie? If Clint had eagerly told Loki of all of this… He was being controlled at the time, Natasha reminded herself. His actions were not his own. She trusted Clint because he had proved himself worthy of trust time and again and would continue to do so.

“He loves you, you know. It colors every foolish memory in that inane head of his. Does he realize you do not feel the same for him? It might be deathly fascinating to see for myself.” Loki’s eyes glittered in the dark.

“Love is for children,” Natasha said.

“Such a precious sentiment. My only lament is that I will not be present to watch as you break his heart like the hammer breaks the glass-smith’s finest creation.” Loki’s long fingers fiddled with the cuff of the shackles. “But…perhaps…”

“Perhaps?” Natasha asked, settling back on her haunches.

“How much is your secret worth, I wonder? Barton will carry it to his grave-he is disgustingly loyal. But I, I have no such qualms. How will my dear brother, the Duke of Asgard, react when he discovers he is not the only ducal power serving above this ship? What will they think when they discover you have lied to them for years? I could be persuaded, you know. Once I strike a deal, I keep it.”

Natasha stared at him for a long time. “Bruce,” she said, raising her voice so that she could be heard by the surgeon.

He looked up and wandered closer, to where she would not need call out to him. “Aye, Nat?”

“I may have forgotten to say this before, but I feel it is important to inform you that I am in fact a princess.”

“I…beg your pardon?”

“I shall tell you more later.” Natasha gave him a reassuring smile before she turned back to Loki. She rose to her feet and dusted off her hands. Tension and relief tangled with the nerves of revealing her deepest secrets to another, but she showed none of this to Loki. “Make sure you have a full deck before you play at cards with me again, Lord Jotunheim.” She tipped her tricorn hat at him and started to leave.

Loki’s voice stopped her at the door. “If only,” he said, “Bucky Barnes had known that before he sacrificed his life to save yours, Tsesarevna.”

The verbal sally found its mark. It took everything Natasha had to keep from flinching, but she smoothly finished rising to her feet. “Nat,” Bruce said in an urgent voice.

“Do try and get some rest,” Natasha told the surgeon. “It would not be wise to let the prisoner chatter until your ears fall off.”

“I’ve a muzzle I can use if he annoys me,” Bruce said, and Loki rolled his eyes.

Natasha gave them all nods, even the dozing Hogun, and headed back to the upper levels of the Angel. She passed Jane near the crew cabins. The brunette inquired after her injuries, which seemed to have spread throughout the entire ship, but Natasha assured Jane she was not in considerable pain, and made her way above. She drew up short when she neared the fo’c’sle. Clint was seated on the bowsprit, conversing with Coulson, who was standing upon the deck nearby.

“Ah, there she is,” Coulson said as she approached. “We had wondered what kept you.”

“Trifling matters.”

Clint tossed her a bottle. He was being deliberately nonchalant, Natasha saw immediately. She said nothing and caught the bottle. “Cap’s personal vintage,” he said when she gave the brown glass a suspicious look. “It has nothing on the swill we used to sneak from No Legs Charlie, but it wets your throat just the same.”

“Thank you.” She turned to Coulson, who was leaning on the scepter like a shepherd’s staff. “A toast, Phillip?”

“Nay, but thank you nonetheless.”

“Can you…”

“I’ve not the foggiest idea, no.” Coulson shrugged. “I shall try it out later. When I am alone and none of you heathens are about to make your jests and your insults.”

Clint put a wounded look on his face. “Oh, come now, Phillip. We would only insult you a little.”

“But you would remember the tales as long as you both live.”

“He makes a solid argument,” Natasha told Clint.

“Aye, he does.”

“I think it is time I carried myself off to the Trickster so that I may fully survey the damage to the ship before I see if I require sleep in my current state.” Coulson started to pay them both a short bow. Natasha put a hand up and abruptly dropped it when she realized her hand would go right through his arm. “Yes, First Mate?”

“Phillip, are you…are you, that is to say, are you handling this metamorphosis to the shade?”

“Oh, worry not about me.” Coulson gave her a smile and a wink. “For every drawback, there is something gained. Think of Governor Fury’s glee upon finding out he has a true spy at his beck and call.”

Clint laughed from the bowsprit. “Aye,” he said, toasting Coulson with his bottle. “You have a point, my good man. I wish you a good morrow.”

“And a good morrow to the both of you as well.” Coulson did them the favor of walking away rather than vanishing from sight.

And then it was only Clint and Natasha left on the deck.

15. Acceptance

When they were alone, Natasha shucked off her boots and stowed them to the side. She cradled the bottle against her chest with her injured hand and made her way, sure-footed and at ease with the swaying of the boat, onto the bowsprit, settling in beside Clint. They’d sat like this after so many battles and errands for Fury. It didn’t matter whether it was in the crow’s nest, on the bowsprit, or in the back of Fury’s pub. They usually found each other in the quiet.

She preferred the quiet.

Clint wordlessly took the bottle from her and uncorked it. “How fares your hand?” he asked as he handed it back.

Though it pained her like nothing else-accelerated healing or not, her hand still hurt-Natasha made sure to use that hand to lift the bottle to her lips. The alcohol burned like the midday sun at sea. “Don’t do that to yourself,” she said, once she’d taken a long slug.

Clint’s jaw went firm. “At least I missed when I was doing my best to shoot you,” he said.

She nodded. “Ten times. The great hawk-eyed sailor missed me ten times. I am the only person in the world that can make that claim, I think.”

She could see wounded pride warring with relief, and stayed quiet. She knew what it was like to be unmade and controlled, every thought put into her head by tutors who cared little for her or her safety, save that she continue to be one of the Lost Sisters. She might not have believed in magic until the Lyskilden had changed them all, but she had known there were monsters all along.

Now there was nothing to do but wait for Clint to make his peace with that as well.

“Is that how you knew?” he asked.

It had been a strong clue, Natasha had to admit. But even stronger than that had been the small flash of relief that had crossed her partner’s face when the Angel’s cannons had rocked the Trickster, causing his first arrow to miss. “You were a bit small for a full Draugr,” she said. “Bit scrawny, too. You call that a fight, Barton? I barely felt any of it.”

“I would have you know I was stronger than Steve,” Clint said, gesturing at her with his bottle.

“Almost.”

“I suppose I should content myself that I did not cause any more damage than I did. Loki, he…” Clint was silent for a long time. “He made you want to obey him. That was what he took. I suppose the scepter, it took everything, but I still had parts of me left. My skill, my wits. I remembered everything, but it was like there was a bulwark between how I felt and what I knew. All that remained was that whatever Loki wanted, I wanted that, as well.”

Tony would have chosen that moment to make a jest about Clint finally wanting to eat saltpork, as Clint famously loathed it. Natasha chose to remain silent. She’d known what to say to Steve, she thought, and to Loki, but when faced with Clint, words seemed to wither away on her tongue. She had no idea how to help him or how to respond.

“The worst part, though, is when he took an interest in me, special-like. That scepter…” Clint twisted the bottle around in his fingertips. He had yet to put on a tunic after she had cut the first one, so she could see the marks of battle on his torso. He had at least bandaged the cut over his heart. “He used it to see into my head. He poisoned every memory I have.”

“Every memory?” Natasha asked, pausing with the bottle halfway to her lips. She hated the taste of alcohol, but she needed its comfort after the day she had had. Coulson was a shade, Loki was in captivity, Steve was heartbroken, and Clint was…she wasn’t sure what Clint was.

“Not precisely every memory, but the ones of import, yes.” Clint regarded her steadily; her heartbeat sped up the slightest amount. “He knows about your past, Natasha. He drew that from my head.”

Natasha put her hand on his wrist, tentatively. She was not usually one for tactile contact, but it felt necessary. “Aye, he knows,” she said. “It will do him little good. Nobody will believe him beyond the ship, and for our crew-mates, I told Bruce myself. You know he will discuss it with Tony, who will delight in confronting me about it at what he considers the opportune moment.”

When Clint looked at her, there was an apology in his eyes. She shook her head, tightly. She had no need for his contrition.

“It matters little,” she said. “It was a different life.”

“I fought him, but I had no hope of defeating him. I had no defenses against him.” Clint rubbed a hand down his face, looking ragged and weary. Natasha wondered if he had been allowed to sleep at all during his time in Loki’s thrall. He certainly didn’t smell pleasant, but she had the less-than-fresh scent of battle clinging to her own skin, so she said nothing. Thankfully, he’d shrunk down from his Draugr size, once again only a hand taller than her. She liked that he felt and looked familiar, if tired. “Now I have nothing of my own. Even my thoughts are not safe in my head. What caliber of a man does that to another? What sort of man pulls another apart at the seams like a used tunic?”

“Not a man,” Natasha said. “A monster.”

The half-smile that quirked at Clint’s lips was forced and humorless. “Do you remember when our lives were common and plain? A simple sailor and a lady’s maid on a big ship, sailing the world?”

“Pro Rege et Patria,” Natasha agreed. “Our lives were never plain, Clint.”

“But they are our own. Or they were.”

Natasha tightened her grip. “Aye, we made them our own when we took over the Angel.” For the first time, every Avenger, every member of that crew, had been a free man or a free woman, released from the shackles of society that had forced them into roles to which they were ill-suited. “Is that what worries you? That you are enthralled by Loki still?”

“No,” Clint said. “No, he is gone from my head, I can sense that. It’s only my memories that have been poisoned and that bear traces of him.”

Natasha turned his words over in her mind, considering them. To her, memories were fickle things, the strands of reality throughout them as fine as gossamer. Clint had always prided himself on his mental acuity; even though she had taught him to read, he had always done sums in his head with speed and alacrity, and his eyes had always been so sharp that he had always been able to recite the outfits of everybody in the room with either of them when prompted. Only drink muddled his mind, and only when he let it. He did not have a childhood of hypnosis and lies to fortify him against such an attack, as she had.

“I cannot think of them without remembering him within them,” Clint said.

“I am afraid you will have to make new memories,” Natasha said. “I do not think we will find a cure that will simply remove the annoying Norwegian from your thoughts.”

“Were that we could,” Clint said, taking a long swig from his drink.

“Aye, I could think of a few of us that would cheerfully forget him.” Natasha tapped her bottle to his. “A toast to new memories?”

“And to another battle at our backs,” Clint said.

Natasha clicked her drink to his-or would have, had he not beaten her to the punch. Unfortunately, he misjudged whatever Draugr strength he had left, so when he tapped his bottle to hers, his bottle shattered, rum exploding in a geyser down his hand and arm. Natasha jumped.

“My apologies,” Clint said, shaking his hand out so that glass fell to the sea. “I’m no proper judge of my own strength anymore, it would seem.”

“We should count ourselves fortunate you did not break your bow into pieces.”

“I still have some misfortune.” He held his hand up to the lamplight from the deck; Natasha could see a splinter of glass, as long as the tip of her smallest finger, lodged deep into his palm. “Some new memory, eh?”

“Let me. You favor that hand.” She handed her own, thankfully undamaged bottle to drink-he took a long gulp-and pulled his injured hand closer to get a good look at it. Mercifully, there seemed to be only the one splinter. “I wonder if your strength will remain like Thor’s servants, or if it will fade.”

“I assure you, I will find my existence upon this earth a far more pleasant one if I am not constantly breaking bottles of good rum.”

“Steady,” Natasha said, smiling a little at his words. “This will pain you some.” Clint hissed out a breath when she pulled loose the shard, but he did not swear, at least. “There,” she said, holding the splinter up to the flickering lamplight. “Done.”

“Somebody ought to warn Doctor Banner that he might have surgical competition.” Clint’s voice deepened fractionally. Part of Natasha noted just how close they were, pressed shoulder to shoulder, mere centimeters between their faces. Around them, the atmosphere felt hushed, quiet save for the lapping of water against the hull, the familiar creak of the Angel’s boards. It made it easier to feel the thump of her heartbeat, which had sped up considerably. She met his eyes, even though they were shadowed at this angle, impossible to read.

He slid his uninjured hand into her hair, fingers carding through the strands until his palm rested, warm, callused, familiar, intoxicating, on the back of her neck. She did not lean into it, though she wanted to.

Was this not why she had told him everything of her past?

“Clint,” she said, her voice even with a calmness she did not feel. “What are you doing?”

“Making a better memory.” He eased forward, as though testing the waters, and kissed her. He tasted of alcohol and the sea. There was nothing desperate or furious or frantic about the kiss, which surprised her. Every time she had imagined kissing Clint, there had usually been danger, passion, and some sort of death-defying experience overcome, but now, his lips moved slowly over hers, as though he had all the time in the world and absolutely nothing he wanted to do more. That, she discovered, was fine by her as well. She could think of nothing she wanted more, either.

Clint pulled back to smile at her, though she felt him tense, waiting for her to attack him. Instead, she gave him a look. “I said new memories,” she said, “not better ones.”

“I prefer better ones myself.”

“We should give the matter some discussion.” Natasha swung her leg over the bowsprit so that she was facing him, scooting closer and lifting her face to his to kiss him again. She didn’t know what felt better: that Clint was safe and with her once more, or that this was real and finally happening, and best of all, mutual.

Their bliss, however, was interrupted by a howl and a call of “Yo-ho, pirates!” in a familiar voice.

Clint rested his forehead on Natasha’s shoulder and groaned. “I thought he was abed.”

“Evidently not.”

“Red! Yo-ho, Red, where be ye? Natasha? Nat?” Tony’s voice carried well over the deck of the Avenging Angel, followed by admonitions from Pepper to be quiet, that the crew was no doubt trying to sleep off the exhaustion of battle. After a second, the man himself appeared, carrying something large in his arms. He spotted the pair on the bowsprit, still quiet firmly and unmistakably wrapped around each other, and his eyes went comically wide. “Oh-ho-ho, what am I interrupting?”

“Did you require something, Stark?” Natasha asked.

Pepper hurried up, giving Tony a peevish look. When she glanced over at Clint and Natasha, however, she clapped both hands over her mouth in delighted shock. “Oh! How long has this been taking place?”

Tony set the object in his arms-Natasha couldn’t make out what it was in the dark-on the deck and turned to his lover. “It certainly sheds a good deal of light onto the motivations of our first mate in retrieving the crew of the Trickster, does it not?”

Clint sighed and lifted his head from Natasha’s shoulder. “It seems our privacy has expired. It is time we faced our tribunal.”

Natasha pushed herself to her feet and clambered easily off of the bowsprit. She didn’t bother to put her boots back on. “What is that that you have by your feet, Tony?”

“A gift for my new friend.”

“You are friends now?” Clint asked.

“It is a lengthy tale,” Natasha said. She blinked as the lamplight allowed her to see the object quite clearly. “Where in the name of Gavriil of Belostok did you happen upon a cello?”

“Pepper found it,” Tony said, the pride in his voice clear. “It was aboard the Trickster, in the hold. By all logic, it must stand to reason that this instrument belonged to whomever Loki defeated when he stole the ship, and since the Trickster has been surrendered to us, this is now property of the crew.”

“We think you should have it,” Pepper said. “You played so beautifully the other night, and Clint will surely want his violin back. Think of the duets you could play-”

“That does not seem to be all they will play, Pep,” Tony said.

“-And we could have so much music aboard the ship again. It would be a delight.”

“Really? You played in front of others?” Clint asked her.

“It was Bruce’s fault.” Natasha picked up the cello, which was lighter than she had expected, and stood it up so that she could get a better look. It certainly seemed to be a fine instrument, intricately carved with Cyrillic etchings in the scroll and along the fingerboard, underneath the strings. She plucked at one of the strings, nodding her approval at the clear sound. “Seems to have fared well against a life on a ship,” she said, twisting one of the pegs to tune the string. “A most excellent acquisition. Thank you, Pepper, Tony.”

For his part, Tony looked genuinely pleased for a minute. He did not attempt to hug her, as Pepper did, which Natasha appreciated even more.

“So,” Clint said. “We are to be a proper crew again? Is the Angel fully back in service?”

Tony shrugged his good shoulder. “We’ve a captain again, now that he’s been freed from the ice, and a crew proper.” Though Clint’s eyebrows went high at the mention of the ice-she had yet to inform him of everything that had happened between Tortuga and the Isla de la Luz Azure, Natasha realized-Tony barreled onward. “Thor will want to take Loki and that infernal instrument of death back to Norway, but we must at the very least return the lovely Miss Foster to her father’s estate. And then, who knows? We’ve a seaworthy vessel, our quartermaster is a shade, our surgeon’s other half has a name of his own, and our captain is in love with a mermaid. If that is no call for a grand adventure, I couldn’t fathom what is.”

Natasha and Clint exchanged a long look. “Jane will not want to wait long before following Thor to Norway,” Natasha said slowly. “She will of course want the swiftest ship for the journey.”

“And surely Governor Fury will wish to send emissaries to the most honorable occasion of the Duke of Asgard,” Clint said, agreeing.

“I personally have never attended a Norwegian wedding,” said a new voice, and Bruce joined them. “I find myself curious.”

“Excellent, Doctor!” Tony threw an arm around his shoulders and turned to face the rest of the crew. “We’ll drink the finest mead and celebrate the nuptials of a crew-mate. There will be drinking and merriment and if you don’t mind Hawk-Eyes over here scowling at you in ugly jealousy, you could convince Nat to dance with you.”

“Or me,” Pepper said, and Tony pouted.

Bruce regarded the group gathered around him for a moment, eyes lingering on the cello supported in Natasha’s hands. “Ah, curse your bones, you lot would be lost without me to mop up the blood. Very well, to Thor’s wedding we go.”

“I am having a wedding?” This time it was Thor who strode up, his war hammer swinging from one hand and a baffled expression on his handsome face. Steve followed close behind, a neutral look in place. Thor looked about in general confusion. “I must confess, I do hope the bride is Jane, or this will be a very difficult thing to explain to my father upon my return.”

“I do believe, Lord Asgard, that they are speaking of your eventual wedding to Miss Foster,” Steve said. He raised his eyebrows at the lot of them. “In fact, if I understand what we have just come upon, the crew has taken the liberty of inviting themselves to your wedding.”

“But of course.” Thor’s expression immediately cleared into a smile. “I would have nothing less! Indeed, you shall be guests of honor. I cannot bring dear Jane with me to Norway without her father’s approval, but the moment he has fully given his consent, you will all feast on the finest of smorgasbords with me and my kin.”

“And there is our invitation to come to Norway,” Natasha said to Clint. “I told you it would happen eventually.”

He sighed as he reached into his trousers pocket and pulled out a coin, placing it in the palm of her hand. “I really should know better by now,” he remarked to Pepper, who gave him a sympathetic smile. “She always wins our wagers.”

“So, Captain,” Tony said, turning to look at Steve. “Does this mean we can go to Thor’s wedding? It is your boat, we follow your orders.”

Steve gave them all a level look. “Are you going to mutiny if I refuse?”

“It is likely,” Natasha said, shrugging.

“Then very well. We will return the good folk to Tortuga and make preparations immediately-as respectable sailors,” Steve said, giving them a look when Tony let out an obnoxious whoop and tossed his top hat. “We will run a reputable, honest trade. No more smuggling, no more pirating, no more privateering. If we are to attend a wedding, we will be upstanding and upright.”

For a long moment, there was dead silence among the crew. Finally, Bruce coughed. “Have you worked that from your system, Cap?” he asked, kindly.

Steve rolled his eyes and smiled. “It was a token protest,” he said. “I know a crew of pirates when I see one. Now get to bed, you scurvy dogs, we’ve work ahead of us if we are to send Thor off in a seaworthy ship.”

There were a few calls of “Aye, Captain!” and one sarcastic salute from Tony, and the group that called themselves the Avengers disbanded, heading below or to the other ship, wherever the most comfortable lodgings to be found were. Natasha waited behind, ostensibly to pull her boots back on. Steve, the last man off the deck, gave her a nod as he left her alone with Clint and her new cello.

Clint picked up the cello, testing its weight. “We’ll have to fashion a case for this. There are supplies on the Trickster that will suit nicely, I think. But I do have to say that that was an absurdly thoughtful notion on Stark’s part. What, did you finally put him in the leg-lock you have been threatening for years? Has he finally learned to fear you?”

“No, we simply struck up a truce.” Natasha licked her fingers and extinguished the candle in its lantern, as the night watchman would have his own lantern and she did not wish for the Angel to burn to cinders while she slept. “It is as I said: we are friends now. Come.”

Clint grabbed her hand. “Where are we going?”

“To make new memories.” Natasha pulled him toward below-decks, smiling as the realization struck him.

He hurried his pace so that he was tugging her along instead. “Better memories, I said. I am certain I said better memories.”

“They had best be better memories, Barton,” Natasha said, and pulled him, laughing, into her cabin.

The End.

Author’s Notes, Round II: Happy Holidays, whatever you celebrate. Thanks for making it to the end of this beast. An interesting fact: Natalia Petrovna was a real person. She was born in 1718, the younger sister of Empress Elizabeth of Russia. Natalia was one of few children fathered by Peter the Great to survive past infancy, but tragically, she died of the measles about a month after her father died. She was seven. I fiddled with her backstory and some of Natasha’s backstory to make the character work, which is why this fic is set in 1745.

If you want to see what the Avenging Angel looks like, google HMS Pickle. I used that ship as a basis (though the Angel is larger).

You probably recognize Loki’s “mewling quim” (urgh, hate that phrase) from the movie. Here are some of the other insults he (and Clint, by proxy) and others use: bracket-faced - ugly; looby - an awkward ignorant fellow; unlicked cub - a rude, uncouth young fellow; thatch-gallows - a rogue or a man of bad character; quean - slut; paper skull - a foolish person. So, even though I never condone using the word “slut,” I do hope I’ve added to your list of available insults, you hanktelos (silly fellows).