are stronger than you think
ties of blood and water
rating: pg
characters: Natasha Romanoff, James Barnes, Clint Barton
warning: minor gore
summary: She will step into this world of monsters if it saves his life, though she will not tell Barnes that. But then, she doesn’t have to. [Pirate!Natasha and merman!Clint.]
author's note: Set in the compass rose 'verse. Takes place before all previously posted stories. For sugar_fey, who asked how Natasha and Clint first met.
The deck was slick under her boots as she crouched beside her fallen sailor, tuning out the few members of the hands working steadily around her. They spoke in low murmurs while they labored to repair the worst of the damage to the Widower, but if they cast their weary eyes on the sight of their captain attending to the wounded man, they said nothing of it.
There was little that they could have said.
“If you die, Barnes,” she told her first mate levelly, “I will kill you.” It was a sign of his pain that he did not attempt to laugh, that white edged his pressed lips and sweat rolled down his brow. Natasha had never fully appreciated his gifts before; she wished, watching him try to breathe through clenched teeth, that she had never had the need to. Many lesser men would have fainted from the pain by now.
Many more would have already died.
The pirate set the thought aside as she knelt by James’ side, nominally waiting for her third mate to make a space below where he could rest. Recover. A pleasant lie they all sought to believe in, with the stench of opened intestines rising from under his blood-soaked hands. In truth they were finding him a place to die.
“Change,” Natasha urged, lowering her voice to the merest whisper. His dark brows drew together at the first mention she had made of his secret, the first hint since that stretch of bloody days marking her rise to captaining the Widower - and still he did not look at her. “An arm is not worth your life. Change, and live.”
Stay human and die.
At that James smiled, a taut grin that held agony and grimness alike; and still he made no reply, made no effort to cast off the skin he wore and become - something.
In the wavering glow of the forward lanterns, Natasha studied his face and wished for the power to reach inside him and force that change, to save her oldest friend.
Something wet brushed against her hand; his fingers, slick with blood and mess and drenched from holding himself together. She took it without hesitation, folding her smaller fingers around his without thought for what covered them. At last James opened his dark eyes and turned them towards her, holding her gaze as his free hand tugged a small parcel from his ruined belt. With a grimace he brought it to his wound and pressed it there to soak the burlap in scarlet; only when he turned her hand over did he look down at it.
"Take it," he told her, sweat rolling down the tanned lines of his face while he placed the bundle in her palm. "Tie to a line, cast it overboard. Might work. You’ll know it, when you see."
Natasha studied the satchel, so small and light for something that could mend the grievous wound done to him, and looked back down.
"How long should I wait?" She asked, but in vain. He had already slipped into a daze, head tilted back, breathing uneven. She tightened her fingers around the bundle and allowed herself a moment to watch him, to try and draw more from his pale and pained expression than she already had - but there was nothing more there, no hint of a transformation, no sign that the man she had come to know was being replaced by something.
However strong James’ will was, Natasha had to wonder that it could stand up to the pain; and if, when that agony became too much, it would succumb.
She rose, keeping his bundle tucked in the palm of her hand and out of sight of the sailor who came at her gesture.
“Keep an eye on him,” was all she said with a nod towards her first mate, sweeping across the reddened planks as if the plight of her oldest crewmate didn’t bother her. But the men in the salt air noted the tightness around her mouth, the pinched look in her eyes, and murmured to themselves of a loyalty that went beyond the Widow’s unconcerned facade.
No one questioned her when she walked the deck to survey the damage, giving brisk and brief instructions about taking care of the dead and the most necessary repairs to undertake. No one questioned her when she returned to the depths of the ship’s interior, sliding along the blood-slick floor to reach her chambers. And no one could have questioned her departure through the rear window of her office quarters for no one saw her allow herself out, swinging down to the perch previously discovered near the rudder’s stay.
There, knotting burlap and blood to a length of line, Natasha listened to the whispering ocean and wondered what monsters she might be calling.
An hour had passed by her reckoning, the lanterns on the deck above giving strange life to the waves in the Widower’s wake, when the fin cut through dark waters. Natasha noted it and frowned, fingers wrapping around the line still trailing past her seat. The scent of death had been carried away long ago, with the bodies that had fallen overboard now far beyond their position, and what could have lingered on James’ satchel should have been washed away within moments of being in the salt water. No, this was no natural shark; this was nothing she could explain.
Goosebumps rose under her stained jacket as she watched the fin cut closer, and the uneasy feeling crept over her that she had opened a door to a world she could no longer deny.
When a hand rose from the water to grip the rudder and the rings which provided a route upwards, Natasha knew her suspicion to be a truth.
A man seemed to rise from the water, finding the handholds which Natasha had considered and decided to let be, now allowing him to draw his torso into her view. From her vantage point she could make out his features, catching the surprise that was incredibly human in appearance before it vanished from his face and was replaced by something almost resembling caution, wariness. It was a good thing that he - if it was in fact male - had decided to treat her so.
"How did you get this signal?" He asked. She was not surprised to hear a human-like voice, nor perfectly understandable English.
"Barnes gave it to me." And as much as she disliked being asked questions of in such a fashion, it was hard to fault him. After all, it wasn’t as if she were a being from legend too.
"What’s happened?"
"He’s injured." Natasha could say the words evenly, cleanly. "A sword-thrust to the abdomen."
The stranger winced, apparently understanding how grave a situation that was for someone with a human form.
"And he won’t change."
"No," she agreed, wondering how much this creature knew of her sailor when he had spent these last years on deck, in holds, never speaking to his kind - that she knew of. Then again, stranger things had happened.
If there was anything she was living proof of, it was this.
"How long does he have?"
"Another few hours, at most. He’s stronger than most men ever were."
"If he gave you this, then you know he’s something no man ever was," the man-seeming fae replied. He looked down, his countenance suggesting that he was considering something, and then met her gaze.
"I will be back in an hour and more, if all goes well. When I am, I will have something to give to you. For him. Are you staying on this heading?"
"Yes."
He nodded, apparently for himself. “Then I will see you then. And Captain, if you believe in the gods? I would suggest praying to them.”
With that he was gone, vanishing into the foamy wake with a flip of a tail she barely saw, and Natasha forced herself to stand, to climb back into her chambers, to walk the long hallway to Barnes’ quarters.
She would have asked him, if she could, what world he had brought her into; what it meant that a stranger from the sea, a merman with human hands and shark tails, knew her rank. But the seaweed-wrapped poultice which the merman returned to give her did not rouse Barnes from his troubled sleep, and in the long vigil until a rosy glow brought through the port window, matching the cheerful oil lamp hanging over the fevered man’s bed, silence - but for the moan of the sea and its wounded sailor - reigned.
rating: pg
characters: Natasha Romanoff, James Barnes, Clint Barton
warning: minor gore
summary: She will step into this world of monsters if it saves his life, though she will not tell Barnes that. But then, she doesn’t have to. [Pirate!Natasha and merman!Clint.]
author's note: Set in the compass rose 'verse. Takes place before all previously posted stories. For sugar_fey, who asked how Natasha and Clint first met.
The deck was slick under her boots as she crouched beside her fallen sailor, tuning out the few members of the hands working steadily around her. They spoke in low murmurs while they labored to repair the worst of the damage to the Widower, but if they cast their weary eyes on the sight of their captain attending to the wounded man, they said nothing of it.
There was little that they could have said.
“If you die, Barnes,” she told her first mate levelly, “I will kill you.” It was a sign of his pain that he did not attempt to laugh, that white edged his pressed lips and sweat rolled down his brow. Natasha had never fully appreciated his gifts before; she wished, watching him try to breathe through clenched teeth, that she had never had the need to. Many lesser men would have fainted from the pain by now.
Many more would have already died.
The pirate set the thought aside as she knelt by James’ side, nominally waiting for her third mate to make a space below where he could rest. Recover. A pleasant lie they all sought to believe in, with the stench of opened intestines rising from under his blood-soaked hands. In truth they were finding him a place to die.
“Change,” Natasha urged, lowering her voice to the merest whisper. His dark brows drew together at the first mention she had made of his secret, the first hint since that stretch of bloody days marking her rise to captaining the Widower - and still he did not look at her. “An arm is not worth your life. Change, and live.”
Stay human and die.
At that James smiled, a taut grin that held agony and grimness alike; and still he made no reply, made no effort to cast off the skin he wore and become - something.
In the wavering glow of the forward lanterns, Natasha studied his face and wished for the power to reach inside him and force that change, to save her oldest friend.
Something wet brushed against her hand; his fingers, slick with blood and mess and drenched from holding himself together. She took it without hesitation, folding her smaller fingers around his without thought for what covered them. At last James opened his dark eyes and turned them towards her, holding her gaze as his free hand tugged a small parcel from his ruined belt. With a grimace he brought it to his wound and pressed it there to soak the burlap in scarlet; only when he turned her hand over did he look down at it.
"Take it," he told her, sweat rolling down the tanned lines of his face while he placed the bundle in her palm. "Tie to a line, cast it overboard. Might work. You’ll know it, when you see."
Natasha studied the satchel, so small and light for something that could mend the grievous wound done to him, and looked back down.
"How long should I wait?" She asked, but in vain. He had already slipped into a daze, head tilted back, breathing uneven. She tightened her fingers around the bundle and allowed herself a moment to watch him, to try and draw more from his pale and pained expression than she already had - but there was nothing more there, no hint of a transformation, no sign that the man she had come to know was being replaced by something.
However strong James’ will was, Natasha had to wonder that it could stand up to the pain; and if, when that agony became too much, it would succumb.
She rose, keeping his bundle tucked in the palm of her hand and out of sight of the sailor who came at her gesture.
“Keep an eye on him,” was all she said with a nod towards her first mate, sweeping across the reddened planks as if the plight of her oldest crewmate didn’t bother her. But the men in the salt air noted the tightness around her mouth, the pinched look in her eyes, and murmured to themselves of a loyalty that went beyond the Widow’s unconcerned facade.
No one questioned her when she walked the deck to survey the damage, giving brisk and brief instructions about taking care of the dead and the most necessary repairs to undertake. No one questioned her when she returned to the depths of the ship’s interior, sliding along the blood-slick floor to reach her chambers. And no one could have questioned her departure through the rear window of her office quarters for no one saw her allow herself out, swinging down to the perch previously discovered near the rudder’s stay.
There, knotting burlap and blood to a length of line, Natasha listened to the whispering ocean and wondered what monsters she might be calling.
An hour had passed by her reckoning, the lanterns on the deck above giving strange life to the waves in the Widower’s wake, when the fin cut through dark waters. Natasha noted it and frowned, fingers wrapping around the line still trailing past her seat. The scent of death had been carried away long ago, with the bodies that had fallen overboard now far beyond their position, and what could have lingered on James’ satchel should have been washed away within moments of being in the salt water. No, this was no natural shark; this was nothing she could explain.
Goosebumps rose under her stained jacket as she watched the fin cut closer, and the uneasy feeling crept over her that she had opened a door to a world she could no longer deny.
When a hand rose from the water to grip the rudder and the rings which provided a route upwards, Natasha knew her suspicion to be a truth.
A man seemed to rise from the water, finding the handholds which Natasha had considered and decided to let be, now allowing him to draw his torso into her view. From her vantage point she could make out his features, catching the surprise that was incredibly human in appearance before it vanished from his face and was replaced by something almost resembling caution, wariness. It was a good thing that he - if it was in fact male - had decided to treat her so.
"How did you get this signal?" He asked. She was not surprised to hear a human-like voice, nor perfectly understandable English.
"Barnes gave it to me." And as much as she disliked being asked questions of in such a fashion, it was hard to fault him. After all, it wasn’t as if she were a being from legend too.
"What’s happened?"
"He’s injured." Natasha could say the words evenly, cleanly. "A sword-thrust to the abdomen."
The stranger winced, apparently understanding how grave a situation that was for someone with a human form.
"And he won’t change."
"No," she agreed, wondering how much this creature knew of her sailor when he had spent these last years on deck, in holds, never speaking to his kind - that she knew of. Then again, stranger things had happened.
If there was anything she was living proof of, it was this.
"How long does he have?"
"Another few hours, at most. He’s stronger than most men ever were."
"If he gave you this, then you know he’s something no man ever was," the man-seeming fae replied. He looked down, his countenance suggesting that he was considering something, and then met her gaze.
"I will be back in an hour and more, if all goes well. When I am, I will have something to give to you. For him. Are you staying on this heading?"
"Yes."
He nodded, apparently for himself. “Then I will see you then. And Captain, if you believe in the gods? I would suggest praying to them.”
With that he was gone, vanishing into the foamy wake with a flip of a tail she barely saw, and Natasha forced herself to stand, to climb back into her chambers, to walk the long hallway to Barnes’ quarters.
She would have asked him, if she could, what world he had brought her into; what it meant that a stranger from the sea, a merman with human hands and shark tails, knew her rank. But the seaweed-wrapped poultice which the merman returned to give her did not rouse Barnes from his troubled sleep, and in the long vigil until a rosy glow brought through the port window, matching the cheerful oil lamp hanging over the fevered man’s bed, silence - but for the moan of the sea and its wounded sailor - reigned.