FIC: Rascals, Scoundrels, Villains, and Knaves (4/5) (for icecream_junkie) - PG-13
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
Author’s Notes: There are some more nautical terms in this section you should probably know, just FYI. boltrope - strong rope stitched to the edges of a sail; buntline - rope attached to the middle of a square sail to haul it to the yard; capstan - upright device for winding in heavy ropes or cables (if you saw the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie, they use a capstan to summon the kraken); fighting top - a platform that could serve as a rest area for sailors working the sails-during battle, sailors could fire muskets or toss grenades from this platform, generally located below the crow’s nest; halyard - rope used for hoisting sails; repeating pistol - an anachronism used by the author to make sure Tony Stark’s weaponry is the most advanced, as this type of pistol was not invented until years after this fic takes place; stay - large rope used to support a mast;
10. A Twist in the Wind
“Ah, Romanova.” Stark’s voice was dry as he joined her up on the deck the next morning. A few of the crew had been roused already, their heads much sorer for the libations imbibed the night before, while Stark looked only a little sleepy. He was clutching a mug of Volstagg’s coffee like a lifeline. “I look forward to the day when you discover the regular pleasures of things like sleep, a willing bedmate, and a good glass of wine.”
“Sleep well?” Natasha asked without looking up from the ship’s log, over which she was bent.
“Tolerably, yes.” Stark eyed her. The scent of coffee drifted over to Natasha and she missed, in that moment, the coffee served in her homeland: strong and bitter enough to clear out one’s sinus cavities. It would certainly make handling Stark easier. She expected him to wander on down the deck or to start talking incessantly, two of his regular morning hobbies. The shipwright and inventor slept less than most of the crew, but he greeted the day the way he’d left it behind: rambling on about whatever struck his fancy. How Pepper tolerated it, Natasha truly did not understand, but for all of their dysfunctional past, the two somehow made the relationship work. Natasha suspected that their fondness for each other was the reason neither had ever returned to England, though Stark could have garnered them both pardons for the piracy misdeeds in an instant. That was what happened when you owned most of the wealth in England.
Stark, however, did not start talking. Instead, he settled on the gunwale and silently stared into the sunrise. He was in shirtsleeves once more, the right sleeve unbuttoned so that the dull metal bracketing his arm from shoulder to wrist was visible beneath the fabric. During the day, he made sure that both the iron calf and the brace were well hidden, no matter how much their tunics stuck to their backs in the hot sun. She never precisely forgot that he had the iron limbs, but many of the others had.
Eventually, Natasha looked up from the ship’s log to watch the sunrise as well. Somewhere, Clint was seeing the same sunrise.
“It occurs to me that you and I have never gotten along,” Stark said, breaking their silence so suddenly that she looked over at him in surprise.
“You don’t like liars.”
“You lie more than you tell the truth, yes.” Stark gestured at her with his mug. “Have a care to deny that?”
Natasha went back to looking at the log, the sunrise no longer holding anything of interest for her.
“Five years ago, I was respectable,” Stark said. “A respectable man, looked up to in many of the circles of the Ton. I had admirers. Granted, mind you, I have never been a moralistic man, nor a particularly religious one-though I of course keep the family pew at St. Paul’s.”
“Of course,” Natasha said, wondering where his inane prattle was going to lead them now.
“But five years ago, my world was small. Contained. I thought myself cultured and erudite, a man with stories of adventures very few could tell. But I was wrong. It is now that I know that. I have done things in these past five years that I would never have dreamed in the life I led from Grosvenor Square. But those experiences, they have taught me that honesty is not measured in blacks and whites. It is not a quantifiable thing. A man can be a liar, but he can also be a good man.”
“A man could also lie and be an absolute thatch-gallows,” Natasha said.
Stark nodded, gesturing with his cup that that was precisely what he had meant. “You and Barton, you’ve done foul things in your life, but you live by your own code, do you not? And it is an honest a code as it can be.”
“Far more honest than most pirate codes, it could be said,” Natasha agreed, wary now. She still couldn’t quite put Stark’s intentions together, though she sensed that something was afoot.
“Too right. And because of that, I think you and I should declare a truce between us and become friends.”
“I beg your pardon?” Natasha asked.
Stark gestured with his mug again. “You get on with the rest of the crew, do you not? Certainly, some of the deckhands likely wet their trousers when you give them that glare-that one right there, incidentally-but even Miss Foster calls you Nat.”
“And you have a hankering to be on such familiar terms with me?”
“Woman, you have a way of saying the word ‘Stark’ like it is drenched in hemlock.”
The exasperation in Stark’s voice made her smile. “And you would prefer I call you Tony? I can make that sound equally distasteful, if you like.”
“I’ve no doubt of it, but I would prefer it if we put this animosity in our pasts and moved forward as, if not close friends, at least allies.”
“I’ve always been your ally, Stark,” Natasha said. When he gave her a frustrated look, she considered. She did not much like the man. She respected his brilliance, for they would have been hard-pressed to find a finer sailmaster. Stark, for all of his faults, pulled his weight. The man just rubbed her the wrong way, like an itch between the shoulder blades that she could not shake. In that moment, it struck her that they had both held onto grudges that she herself would have let pass years before out of apathy. When she searched herself to find out why she had harbored such a grudge, she did not like the answer. A form of penance over Bucky’s death was so…common. Nor did she like Clint’s voice in the back of her mind telling her that he had told her so, that Stark wasn’t such a horrible gent.
“But perhaps I have been a bit cold to you,” she said. “That does not forgive how exasperating you can be.”
“Nothing really does,” Stark-Tony-said with a smile. “So have we an accord? Friends?”
“You may not call me Tasha.” Natasha pointed at him. “Nat or Natasha only, and if I hear tell of your calling me Tasha, I will dismantle that arm brace while you sleep and feed it to the fishes.”
“You seek to limit me already? I am wounded.” Tony put his irony-gauntleted hand over the shard embedded into his chest. “Wounded.”
Natasha smiled and Tony toasted her with his mug. They fell back into the same silence from earlier. This time, Natasha turned from the ship’s log to the navigational charts she had nicked from the sailmaster’s quarters the night before.
Tony frowned. “How came you by those?” he asked.
“You’re a far heavier sleeper than you know.”
“You do understand how terrifying you are, correct?” Tony asked. “So, First Mate, just what is it about that chart that has drawn such fascination from a lowly sailor?”
“This mark here.” Natasha spread the chart over the deck and tapped the mark that had drawn her notice. “It looks like an island, but it bears no name.”
“The cartographer is an eccentric.” Tony drew a small book, bound in leather, from inside his tunic. “Read me the lines?” When Natasha had, he thumbed the pages until, frowning, he found the proper name. “Hmm.”
“Hmm?” Natasha echoed.
“This cannot be coincidence, my newfound Russian friend.” Tony held the book to her with his finger marking the name.
Natasha stared at it for a moment and then down at the smudge of ink on the map. “When was this chart plotted?”
“I paid the cartographer heavy coin for his most recent work. He assures me that he named many of the islands himself. One would be led to believe that such a declaration includes this particular island.”
“The Isla de la Luz Azur,” Natasha said, drawing out the Spanish syllables. The island of the blue glow. “Could it be that Loki has established a stronghold? It is directly in our path. We could be mistaken in our belief that Loki amassed a crew to attack a city.”
“Or…” Tony frowned.
“Or?”
“The island of the blue light, correct? I’ve no ear for Spanish, but ‘azur’ must be blue.”
“Aye.”
“Then…” Stark looked down at his chest. “The Lyskilden sank to the depths with Stane, but an artifact powerful enough to do this to all of us, there is no true way to discover whether or not it remains drowned, is there? The compass I designed for Rogers, it deals with locating the shard of the Lyskilden we assume is in Loki’s scepter.”
“You think the Lyskilden is on this isle?”
“We’ve witnessed much crazier happenings, Red.”
Natasha ran a hand over her face, tired and fearful and hating the uncertainty that set like a lump of bad porridge in her belly. “So it is possible we’ve been tracking the Lyskilden this entire time and Loki is somewhere else entirely.”
“That was always a possibility. Though, the Count of Jotunheim is a smart man. A clever one, certainly, as the crow calls. It could be that he has worked out the same compass I have and this island is his destination as well.” Tony shrugged his good shoulder. He picked up the navigational chart to study it. “If he has, we might be in luck for the first time on this journey.”
“How do you mean?”
“See here? There is a current.” Tony traced lines on the map with his fingertip. “If you will look in the book, the finer detail in the drawing of the map reveals that there is a natural harbor on the island’s eastern side. I can almost guarantee that if he is on that island, he will be in that harbor.”
“You think we might sneak up on the other side?” Natasha asked, putting it together.
“Smarter than I give you credit for, Nat.”
Natasha ignored the gibe. “We should alert Steve,” she said. “How much longer will the altered course take?”
“A half day’s hard sail, if I had to guess. Given time and knowledge of the weather patterns, I could provide a better estimate.”
“Best work up a better estimate while you can. I’m off to wake the captain and let him know of our findings.”
“Is that all the gratitude I am to receive?” Tony called after her as she strode off, leaving him to his charts. “If that’s the case, I’m not certain I want to be friends anymore!”
Natasha laughed as she headed below.
“It’s a strong theory,” Bruce said when they held a council in the wardroom while the crew worked away above. “The thought of the Lyskilden being dredged up from the sea this entire time, it makes me significantly uneasy, for reasons I am sure nobody here need question…”
“It is my responsibility,” Thor said, looking grim. He stood off to the side of the cabin with his arms over his chest, his sleep shirt billowing about his massive frame. The ties at his chest and wrists were undone. “Just as Loki is my responsibility.”
Natasha didn’t give a fig about responsibility. They had a problem; she needed solutions rather than claims of responsibility.
Steve also had his arms crossed over his chest. He stood at the head of the table. “I had always assumed that if somebody were to discover the Lyskilden, we would somehow be able to feel it,” he said.
“Why?” Tony asked. He pounded his fist into his chest, making the shard glow brightly for a brief second. Though a few of them flinched at the movement, that was the only outward reaction. “None of you felt that, correct?”
“We certainly heard it,” Bruce said.
“There is no mystical connection between us and the glowing blue box that cursed us. The only bonds we share are those of colleagues. I assure you, in our time apart, I gave Loki no more than a thought in passing. None of us felt the moment Loki took control of Clint’s faculties.”
Natasha stayed quiet. When she had gone to collect Bruce from the jungle, she had assumed Clint would be waiting for her when she returned to Tortuga, were he not called away on another of Fury’s errands. Clint had always waited for her. She always waited for him. But there was never a mystical feeling, deep inside, no ability to sense when the other was near or in peril. The only change was that of late, his smile had a way of making her heartbeat speed up. She needed no mystical Norwegian artifact to explain that, though.
“So how certain are we, then?” Steve asked.
“Whatever is on that island has something to do with the Lyskilden. Whether it be Loki’s purported shard in his scepter or the Lyskilden itself, I could not tell you, though.”
“So do we approach the isle with caution?”
“The Angel is light, and fast-and yare.” Natasha took a deep breath. “If St-Tony thinks we will lose only half a day at best, it may be worth it, Cap.”
“So your vote is for the alternate route?” Steve asked. He’d raised his eyebrow at the name.
“Aye.”
“Stark?”
“I cast my lot in with Red.”
“We need to mark this as the day that Natasha and Tony agreed upon something and perhaps celebrate with a feast,” Steve said, and both of them gave him the same sarcastic smile, which made him shake his head. “Doctor? Your Grace?”
“I am for the direct approach,” Thor said, “but I will go along with whatever the group decides as a whole. We have had discord before. It ended with the Captain and myself in the ice, my brother on the rampage, and Mister Barton unfortunately under the thrall of my brother’s spell. Whatever choice we make going forward, we do it together.”
“Good man,” Steve said. “Doctor Banner?”
“Caution is an approach we’ve never tried before,” Bruce said. “I for one would enjoy a bit of novelty.”
“Well put.” Steve nodded. “Very well. My deepest apologies, Your Grace, but it looks like we are to be sailing upon Tony’s alternate course.”
“A half day is not too much time to lose at sea,” Thor said with an incline of his head to the captain. “Though I confess that I am nervous that the Lyskilden may be once more on the surface.”
“Take heart,” Tony said. “We could arrive and discover naught but your evil brother and two hundred slaves under his thrall intent to cut us down where we stand.”
“Truly, Tony, you are a comfort to us all,” Natasha said.
“I try,” Tony said, presenting to her a courtly bow.
11. The Isla de la Luz Azul
Their meeting proved held in vain: a tempest rose that afternoon, requiring all hands on deck. Even Jane and Darcy were called upon, Jane bringing sustenance to the crew as they battled to keep the sea from sweeping away pieces of the Angel , and Darcy leaping at Natasha’s commands. She was underfoot more than she was on hand, but the brunette soldiered on so bravely that Natasha reevaluated everything she had thought about Jane’s lady’s maid. The storm raged throughout the night, breaking the next day into rainfall that proved more of a discomfort than a true hindrance. It gave Natasha and Pepper time to lash themselves to the mizzentop yard and repair a giant tear in the topsail. Coulson and Bruce used the reprieve to repair what lines they could and replace those they couldn’t, while Tony fixed the belaying pins. After some time, Darcy joined the two at the topsail, putting her lady’s maid skills to good use.
When Tony made a comment about the sewing being women’s work, Pepper ‘accidentally’ dropped her boot on his head. He gave them a look of wounded innocence before he stalked off.
“What?” Pepper asked when Natasha and Darcy gave her impressed looks. “It prevents Natasha from shooting him.”
“Waste of a good bullet,” Natasha said. The rain made for less than ideal conditions, but the winds were calm enough that they did not have to remove the sail completely and haul it to the deck. If Darcy occasionally gripped the yardarm in terror when the ship caught on a swell, Natasha could not blame her.
The sun did not appear until the day after that, which meant that they had no true way of knowing how far off course they had been blown. Broken lines were mended or replaced, a new coating of tar was laid down over damaged gunwales. Natasha kept her anxiety in hand by filling her hours: teaching Jane and Pepper to wield a cutlass, arguing with Tony, providing whatever assistance with the carpentry that Bruce required. After supper, Steve challenged her to a chess match. He beat her resoundingly, and Natasha knew it was because she was more distracted in worrying about Clint than she cared to admit.
The cry of “Land, ho!” pulled them all from their cabins the next morning. Hogun, who had first shift watch, waved as the Avengers scrambled to the fo’c’sle to get a look. Stark hurriedly pulled his reference book from his pocket and flipped through to the proper page. “Oh, Poseidon’s mercy,” he said. “It’s the Isla de la Luz Azul-and we’re in luck, to be coming up upon the other side.”
“So Loki might be on the other side of the island?” Steve asked.
“Or the Lyskilden, if we’re truly unlucky.”
“Let us hope for luck and pray for mercy,” Steve said.
“Amen,” Coulson said, kissing his St. Christopher’s medal.
“Rouse the crew, all hands on deck,” Steve said. “Prepare to drop anchor.”
Immediately, they scrambled to obey. Natasha’s heart, which had been in her throat from the moment she’d heard Hogun’s call, settled somewhat, though not enough for comfort. Soon, she would know if they’d found Loki or not. But before she could hurry off to trim her sail, Steve grabbed her arm. “Once we’ve dropped anchor, gather Sif and His Grace and come to my quarters. How mad would you say Coulson is?”
“Given the inclination, he could make Tony Stark look like a sane man, Cap’n.”
“Wonderful. He can come along.”
“Somebody should tell Captain Rogers he is cork-brained.”
Sif, as it turned out, was not at all fond of the jungle. The Isla de la Luz was of a much rougher terrain than the island where they had been enslaved with their minds imprisoned. Certainly, the woman warrior was cheerful-she was never anything less, Natasha had discovered-but she was also unafraid of making her opinion known.
“Come, Lady Sif,” Thor, who was bringing up the rear of their odd quartet, walking along behind Coulson, “surely you must enjoy the chance to be off of the ship.”
“There are bugs as big as my fist, Your Grace,” Sif said.
Natasha personally found that complaint perfectly valid. Behind Sif, Coulson gave her a bland smile.
“Tell ye what,” she said, whacking at another frond with her machete so that it would allow them to pass. “We all survive this mission, and I’ll tell the captain so myself. To his face, even.”
“Did you not just call our captain a round mouth rattlepate just yesterday?” Sif looked confused.
“She did not say that the occasion would be a rare or particular one,” Coulson said.
“I like this,” Sif said. “I enjoy this informality you share with your captain, your crew. I have every hope that we will not perish at the hand of Lord Jotunheim so that this happiness may continue.”
“We will do our best,” Natasha said, tossing a salute over her shoulder.
There was no map of the island, so Natasha had borrowed one of Tony’s compasses-since they were friends now, she had asked first. She had her cutlasses strapped to her back, but she’d left her brace of blunderbusses with Jane. Thor had his battle hammer swinging loosely from his fist. With his Lyskilden-based powers, he could destroy a mainmast with that hammer alone, so it reassured Natasha somewhat to see it. Coulson had a brace of knives across his chest and a cutlass on his belt, mirroring Sif’s own collection. They hiked east, hoping that they would arrive on the other side of the island by nightfall. An hour past dusk was the time Steve had marked for a potential attack. The Angel was going to invade the harbor, ship or no ship, and hopefully the three of them would reach it in time for any battle that ensued.
It wasn’t one of Steve’s better plans, but it beat sitting on a ship all day waiting.
Three hours later, they paused to eat and rest; it would not aid anybody to exhaust themselves before they had even reached the ship. Sif and Thor at least made the hike interesting. There were tales of legends from their home country to share, even if they stumbled over a few of the English words for the tales. Sif was regaling them all with a tale of the great Heimdall when they reached the acme of the island. The harbor spread out below them, widening out into an impossibly blue sea.
“Oh,” Sif said, stopping in mid-sentence.
As one, the four of them looked at the ship in the cove. “Loki,” Coulson said.
Natasha bit back any relief she might feel. The ship, which she assumed that Loki must have stolen, was a frigate, crewed by anywhere between a hundred and fifty to two hundred. From the reports Fury and Coulson had given them in Tortuga, the ship was likely operating at capacity. How many of those people still had their humanity, Natasha wondered? How many had become full Draugr? If the fisherman had told her aright in Tortuga, there might be a fair few on that ship. Clint might be among them.
She took a breath, reminded herself that Clint was one of the most stubborn chubs in the Caribbean. If there was anybody that could resist becoming a Draugr, it would be him. He would be too busy arguing some trivial point to succumb to such simplicity of mind.
“Come,” she said. “The sun will draw low in the sky, and we need to be on the shore by the time that happens.”
They headed down to the beach. It was tricky to stay out of sight, but Coulson discovered a set of caves off to one side of the sand that could shield them until dark fell. It was only a matter of waiting, which wouldn’t take long; the sun was already beginning to melt into the horizon.
“What do you suppose he’s doing upon this island?” Coulson asked as he passed out their supper rations. “What is the lure for him?”
“Perhaps he heard the island’s name?” Thor asked. “He must have come to the same conclusion we did.”
“Something feels off,” Coulson said, shaking his head.
Natasha nodded. She decided, rather than wrinkling her nose at the offered rations, to chew and swallow quickly, washing the foul taste down with her canteen. “I know not what.”
“I suppose we’ll have to find out the difficult way.” Coulson finished his own rations and settled back against the cave wall. To Natasha’s amusement, he shut his eyes and dropped off to sleep on the spot. This seemed like a fine idea to both Sif and Thor, for each followed suit, leaving Natasha to keep watch. She did not mind. It gave her time to stare across the darkening harbor and at Loki’s ship, as though the power of her gaze alone would draw Clint to her.
Eventually, slowly, the sky darkened to the appropriate hue that would hide their trek across the sand. Natasha awoke her companions, and they moved off as a pack. At the edge of the water, they all removed their boots, tying them over shoulders and around necks. Thor, as the strongest swimmer, led the way, his giant hands cutting through the water like paddles. Natasha had learned to swim as a child, after her time in the palace, so she did not fear the long swim. When they reached a certain distance from the ship, she took a long, deep breath, filling her lungs with air, and dove beneath the surface.
There were no shouts when she surfaced again, this time next to the hull of the ship. A second later, Sif’s head popped up, water streaming off of her hair. She gave Natasha a questioning look. Natasha shrugged in reply. When Thor and Coulson joined them by the hull, she gave each a tiny salute and began to climb. It was difficult because the hull was slippery, slimed from years of the sea, but she gritted her teeth and held on. She could hear the hiss of Coulson’s breath next to her whenever he slipped.
By the time she reached the gunwale, her muscles were burning so hard that she could taste citrus on her tongue. She breathed carefully: in once, out once.
This was the part of the plan, she knew, that included the most risk. Loki would have a watch-team if he was a smart sailor, and she had no way of knowing if the Angel was truly coming or if calamity had befallen the ship in the day they had been apart from it. But considering that she was clinging to the hull of the enemy’s ship, it was a mite too late to back out of it now.
“Godspeed be with you,” she whispered to her companions and, hauling herself level with the gunwale, she peered over it. There were a few sailors upon the deck, but nobody was actively looking her way. Trying not to groan from the effort, she pulled herself over the side and landed with cat’s feet on the deck. She streaked across it, ducking behind a pile of rigging. While she untied her boots from her shoulder, she risked a couple of peeks at the sailors wandering around and had to fight down a strong feeling of deja vu.
Sif joined her after a moment, strengthening the sense of deja vu. “These sailors, they are possessed, yes?”
“Yes, like you and the others were on the island.” Natasha pulled one boot on and then the other, keeping her movements silent. Loki had marked these slaves with his scepter, she knew, according to Coulson and Fury. If they were anything like the fisherman back in Tortuga, each would bear a symbol somewhere on their skin. Natasha suspected that breaking the symbol-in the fisherman’s case, with the swipe of a sword-would break the trance.
Provided, she thought as she and Sif watched a sailor that had to be at least nineteen hands tall stride by, a blank look in his eyes, they had not already completed the change to Draugr. There must be some full Draugr by now, for no human could be that tall naturally. There was a waxy gray cast to the sailor’s skin that she could not be certain was the darkness or an effect of Loki’s sorcery.
“Clint will be up high,” she said, speaking softly to avoid being overheard. “Remember, keep silent. If you cannot break the thrall silently, do not risk it.”
“You go, see to your hawk-eyed sailor, madam. Duke Asgard, Mister Coulson, and myself will fare quite well here on deck.” Sif smiled, and for a moment, there was a touch of the predator behind her eyes.
“Very well. Could I get a leg up?”
Sif plucked her up-like she had during their battle in the jungle-and tossed Natasha. The redhead barely managed not to curse, but she did catch the main yard and haul herself up. Apparently, she thought as she steadied herself, trusting that the darkness would keep her from view, the effects of whatever Loki had done to the warriors in the jungle had indeed lasted.
When she was steady, she ran along the yard, grateful for all of that acrobatic training that allowed her to run unaided by any of the lines. The ship was large enough to have a fighting top on the main mast-which was the second of three, though she did not see anybody on the mizzen mast or the fore mast-but Clint wouldn’t be there. Not if the ship also had a crow’s nest. Even so, real fear coursed through her gut as she shimmied up the main mast, clinging to the bottom of the fighting top for a second. A quick swing of her legs to get some momentum and she flipped upward, landing easily on the small platform-
And startling the sailor on watch there.
Before the man could even open his mouth, she tumbled forward into a handspring, wrapping her thighs around the man’s neck. By steeling all of the power in her abdomen and lurching forward, she was able to flip him over entirely so that she was almost sitting on his face. She twisted about to cuff him viciously with the hilt of her knife, hoping nobody had heard the obvious thump of his body hitting the platform.
“Sorry, Parker,” she said when she recognized the young man. Knowing it was time she didn’t have, she hauled up on his shirt, searching desperately for a mark, any mark.
She found it on the side of his ribcage. So, she thought, Loki did not mark every victim in the same place. “My apologies,” she whispered, and gave him a shallow slice over the symbol, neatly bisecting it. She wiped the blade on his tunic and sheathed it, for there was no way she was going to climb up the mast with a knife in her teeth. Especially not a knife with a man’s blood on it.
Leaving Parker behind, she began to climb. She was younger than thirty, she thought, but she had done several crazy, foolish things in her life. Dangerous, deadly, awful things. She had killed people her half-brother wanted dead for years, until she’d broken free and had killed people for money rather than loyalty before entering into service. The scales upon her personal balance were tipped unequivocally toward death and despair. And now, she thought, she was likely on her way to join all of her victims. She was willingly entering Clint’s territory, where she knew he had a bow, deathly accuracy, and the hearing of the birds. She had no fear of heights, but unlike Clint, she did not thrive in that atmosphere. In all truth, she knew, she was about to die.
She would free Clint first.
Every muscle was tensed as she finally reached the crow’s nest, both ears cocked for any noise on the deck that indicated they had been discovered. And what was keeping the others? The Angel should have been there by now. She pulled herself up to just beneath the crow’s nest, sliding one of her cutlasses free from its sheath as quietly as she could. Coiling all of the power in her left arm, she hauled herself up.
The platform was empty.
Natasha landed on both feet, immediately looking about for any signs of Clint. Had something happened to him? The crow’s nest was his space. She turned…
There he was, five meters away, balanced easily on the rigging. It was all wrong, she could see that in an instant, his expression was off and his eyes were an unnatural, eerie blue. He had an arrow aimed straight at her left eye socket.
Every part of her went cold as though it had been her, and not Steve or Thor, in that ice.
“Greetings,” he said.
Before he could shoot, however, the crack of cannon fire sounded. It rocked the boat so much that Natasha had to leap for a rope and Clint’s shot went wide.
The cavalry had arrived.
12. Aboard the Trickster
His arrow missed.
Something tugged at Clint’s collarbone, perhaps, a certain knowledge and disbelief. It was tempered with the stronger feeling of relief, but Clint ignored all of those emotions because Loki would not like those emotions. He knew of what Loki would approve and what he would not, even if there was no Loki standing there, guiding his actions or making suggestions. Clint understood in his very bones that he had no other purpose on this earth than to serve Loki.
Loki wanted Natasha dead.
The explosion of cannon fire from below sounded once more. His superior sense of hearing informed him that those were the indeed Angel’s guns. That was how Natasha must have arrived. He categorized the noise, dismissed it as his secondary problem, and focused on Natasha instead. He was to kill her. She swung around the boltrope she’d clutched when the ship had rocked. His arrow missed her by centimeters, as did the next one he fired off as she ran straight at him along the rope.
She jumped and hit him in the chest with both boots. He stumbled back, grabbing a buntline to steady himself. It proved a giant mistake: Natasha used his discombobulation to kick him again, this time behind the knee.
Pain exploded up his leg. Clint ignored it because Loki would find it unimportant. Still, he lost his balance and dropped, catching himself on the same rope he’d been balanced upon. He correctly anticipated that Natasha would follow him down and swung out with his bow. It caught her on the elbow; she grunted and swung backward, away from him. Perfect. If she got close enough to wrap her legs around him, he had no hope of surviving.
As one, they hauled themselves back onto the rope, which swayed and danced in the wind. Clint swung his bow at her again. She dropped low and tried to sweep his legs out from under him. It gave him the opportunity to nock an arrow and fire it off at her.
She dropped once more, swinging all the way around the rope in a circle like an acrobat. She used the momentum to launch herself at Clint again. The blade in her hand caught the moonlight. Natasha came at him, slicing wildly enough to let him know she was trying to force him back. Clint blocked the strike with his bow and stepped in, wanting to knock her from the rope. She could survive a bit more than most folk, but if she fell to the deck from this height, it would make his job so much easier.
Loki wanted her dead.
Loki wanted Clint to kill her slowly, closely, intimately, but dead was dead, in the end.
Clint jabbed out hard with his left fist. It hit the side of Natasha’s ribcage, making her let out a soft cry and step backwards. Perfect. He followed that up, intending to broadside her with the bow once more. She went backward, dodging the hit but failing to gain her footing.
Once again, she caught the rope when she fell. Clint stomped hard on her knuckles. Natasha cried out once more, but did not release her grip. Instead, she flung the knife in her other hand at him. Clint leapt back, his arms windmilling as he tried to steady himself on the rope. Natasha grunted as she hauled herself back up onto the rope, balancing precariously with no guidelines about to help her out. Below them, smoke and shouts drifted up, cutting in and out of Clint’s subconscious.
He steadied himself, snatched an arrow from his quiver. She raced toward the crow’s nest.
He let the arrow fly. Natasha hit the platform in a skid, ducking easily below the arrow so that it sprouted from the mast. Clint grabbed another and loosed it right behind the first, but Natasha was too fast for him. As little more than a blur in the darkness, she launched herself out off of the platform and into the open air. Clint grabbed a third arrow even as Natasha clutched a halyard line. It didn’t even slow her momentum. Again, his arrow missed her by the slightest distance. She was already in mid-flight once more, both feet aimed solidly at his shoulder.
Twin feelings of satisfaction and frustration hit him right before she did.
He tumbled backwards, losing his footing. There was a brief, exhilaration of weightlessness, like he’d become one of the birds he so admired, before something wrapped around his forearm. His free fall jerked to a stop. He looked up to realize that Natasha was hanging upside down from the rope by her legs, her hand wrapped around his forearm. Her face was strained from the pressure.
He snatched an arrow from his quiver and stabbed it into her hand, digging in a good inch.
She gasped. “Damn your blackguard soul, Barton,” she said through gritted teeth, and Clint felt a smile, unnatural and cruel, spread over his face. Blood dripped down like warm water onto his arm. He moved to twist the arrow-how dare somebody as lowly as she catch him, Loki’s faithful servant?-but another knife appeared in her free hand. He got a cut across the back of his own hand for his trouble.
He shook the offended limb and glared at her.
“An eye for an eye, a cut for a cut,” she said, canting an eyebrow at him as she pulled the arrow from her hand.
The reek of cordite and gunpowder clogged the air. “Filthy quaen,” Clint said, and tried to pull free.
Natasha Romanova did not have preternaturally astounding strength for nothing, though. Even as Clint tried to struggle his way out of the grip, she grimaced and swung her body so that Clint was tossed about like a poppet on the wind. Before he could figure out what her purpose was, she released him.
He flew again for the briefest of moments before his boots slammed hard into the fighting top. Parker lay upon it, quite unconscious. Clint didn’t let that bother him. Natasha, the minute she’d freed Clint, she pulled herself to her feet on the rope, way above his head. She sprinted gracefully across the rope, never missing a step.
His arrow missed her yet again.
“B-Barton?” Parker, below him on the fighting top, stirred and looked up at him. “Wh-what is happening? Why does my head feel like-”
Clint kicked him; the man dropped to the platform, unconscious.
Unfortunately, it had distracted him from tracking Natasha. She’d used the opportunity to slip from sight, which meant that with her agility and speed, she could be anywhere in the cordage. Clint tuned out the calls of his fellow sailors-they had Loki, they had enough leadership, his immediate problem was Natasha and Natasha alone-and scanned the masts, searching for any sign of his red-headed foe. She was crafty and quick. He’d seen her sneak upon a pack of a dozen men and drop all but three or four of them within a minute.
That was not even to consider the night she had become a widow.
She is sentimental. He heard the voice like Loki’s in his head. Loki would think her unable to kill him, but Clint knew better. Natasha had told him of the life she had led, the way she had been raised in that red room in Russia. Make that her undoing, Barton. She will feel responsible to end you up close. Lure her in.
He kept his bowstring pulled to his ear as he searched, those sharp eyes that were a gift of the Lyskilden scouring every inch of canvas and rope. She was quiet, quieter than a cat. He had no hope of hearing her, but his eyesight was legendary. The very instant she slipped up, he would know where she was and he would kill her.
Movement up and to his left made him twist. He fired off an arrow. It missed. He grabbed a second arrow, but she’d disappeared behind the fore topgallant mast. He waited patiently for her to resurface.
He was the osprey on the wind. The osprey could wait hours for its kill.
The second time she appeared, it was to his right, about four meters up. Clint’s arrow hit the mast where Natasha had been less than a second before. Even as he reached for yet another arrow, she sliced through a stay and swung down. She cut his next arrow from the air with her cutlass.
He dropped the bow and swapped it for his cutlass, meeting her opening strike with a parry of his own. It wasn’t easy for them to fight, not with Parker in the way. Natasha was the superior with the blade, but her hand was injured and he was stronger, far stronger than he had ever been. Every day on the Trickster, his strength grew. He swept the cutlass at her legs, intending to cut them from beneath her.
She jumped high, bouncing one boot off of the mast, and bore down upon him with the sword, a knife glinting in her free hand. He blocked the sword, but the knife tip caught him, dragging a long, shallow, painful cut up his bicep.
He glared. Natasha looked both pained and challenging in reply.
“Are you yourself yet?” she asked, attacking him with a move she’d taught him three years hence.
Clint blocked. “That’s a silly question, princess.”
There was the slightest falter in her step. In a move that some fighters might consider unsporting, she brought her sword crashing down, aiming for his fingers. He yelped and nearly dropped the cutlass. Something deep inside him wanted to laugh. It puzzled him.
Clint retaliated by trying to cut her leg at the hamstring. Natasha kicked off the mastpole and cuffed him on the side of the head with her closed fist, the knife-tip ripping at the collar of his shirt. He moved his head to deflect most of the blow, but twisted about, grabbing Natasha with his free arm. They stood like that for a moment trapped in time, swords locked, Clint’s hand gripping Natasha’s shoulder.
She looked into his eyes.
And then she punched him.
Clint tottered on the edge of the platform, shocked. Natasha spat out a wad of blood, kicked off once more, and launched herself at him, hitting him in the chest even as she caught him with her legs. The sensation of falling once more made his stomach leap to his throat, but Natasha had her legs wrapped around his midsection. She grabbed a rope, slashing it with her cutlass at the same time. Instead of flying, they swung down to the deck together.
“Steve!” he heard Natasha say, and then they hit something solid, warm, and human. “Hold him.”
Arms like iron cables wrapped around him even as Natasha flipped away. Clint struggled; it was smoky and dark and he couldn’t see a thing, but he heard the cacophony of pistol fire and the clash of swords over the hoarse shouts of screaming men. “B-Barton?” he heard a familiar voice close to his ear ask, and he knew that he was being held down by none other than Captain Rogers himself.
“Hold him, Steve. I need to find his mark.”
When Natasha tried to come closer, Clint kicked out at her. They would not take him prisoner. He was Loki’s servant. He would go down fighting or not at all, and this was not acceptable. He struggled hard, trying to get the hand that was still gripping his sword.
“Our Lord in heaven, what in the name of St. Christopher-he’s far stronger than he should be!” Rogers said as Clint fought on.
“He’s not full Draugr,” Natasha said.
“Sure feels like it.”
Clint tried to elbow Steve, kicking against the deck and doing everything he could to free himself. Steve’s grip only tightened, infuriating the archer. This sort of imprisonment was far below him. He should be out there, fulfilling Loki’s wishes and slicing Natasha’s skin from her bones. By luck, he struggled free, only to leap forward and hit the flat of Natasha’s arm across his chest. He hit the deck hard, his breath rushing from his lungs. The cutlass was kicked from his hand and he was once again hauled to his feet, this time wheezing and out of breath.
“Have you finished?” Natasha asked, looking completely unimpressed.
He cursed at her in the Romani tongue.
She tilted an eyebrow. And then to his surprise, she darted in with a knife, aiming for the shoulders of his jerkin. “Woman-what are you-”
“Calm yourself!” Rogers ordered, and it was so like the long list of orders Clint had taken from the man since his time on the Ferrous that Clint nearly obeyed. Only Loki’s tiny voice at the back of his mind reminded him that he was meant for far more than this, that it was his duty to get free and to take down these puny, insignificant mortals. His cursing increased tenfold.
Natasha looked completely unflappable as she cut the rest of his jerkin away from him. She left a swath of blood from her wound on his collarbone. “Of course,” she said after a moment.
“What?” Rogers asked. “What is it?”
A pistol shot shattered the yardarm directly over their heads, raining down splinters upon them.
“Loki put the mark directly over his heart, like the marks in the ice.”
What was she even talking about? Natasha laid a hand on his chest and Clint’s head suddenly felt muddled and slow, as though he’d drowned his sorrows in drink the night before and was paying for it with a sore head now. “Back, you hell cat,” he managed to say, though his words were slurred.
“My deepest apologies, Clint,” Natasha said, and sliced him in the chest with her knife.
It was not a deep cut. He’d been injured in battle before, knew how to categorize wounds even in the state of high adrenaline, to know when he was deeply wounded or not. This was a shallow slice, just the bare tip of Natasha’s knife, little more than a scratch on his chest. Why it would cause his head to feel as though it might explode like a mortar, or for his bones to sing out once in sudden, sharp, and vibrant agony, he didn’t know. He shouted so hard that his throat hurt and sagged so abruptly that Steve dropped him.
He hit the deck face-first and lay there.
Sensations slowly trickled in. He could hear the unmistakable noise of battle, as familiar to him as any gypsy’s song, but he felt more. Suddenly, it was like his head was all his own, like his thoughts were no longer coated in blue. His world and vision were no longer rimed with him. When he looked at Natasha, he saw nothing but red, red hair and green eyes and pale skin.
And every single thing that had been buried behind a wall of his subconscious broke through.
“Clint?” Natasha was suddenly beside him, crouching close. Her expression, which he hadn’t been able to fully read before beyond the things Loki wanted him to see, spoke volumes. To anybody else, it would have been almost a dispassionate look, but Clint knew better. There were dark circles under her eyes, fear and hope equally mixed behind those same eyes.
“Tasha,” he said, since he couldn’t seem to say anything else.
For the tiniest of instants, she seemed to collapse in on herself, as though she’d lost all of her strength, but he blinked and she was his Natasha again. She reached down and pulled him to his feet. “Welcome back. How do you feel?”
“Like I fought a whiskey barrel and lost.”
“Well, clear your head, sailor, we’ve a battle to fight.” She tossed him his cutlass.
No passionate embrace, Clint thought, not for people like them. He wasn’t sure he deserved it. Loki had been the compelling force behind every single one of his actions, but his body had been the one Loki had used to harm her and the others. Everything inside his skull felt blurry and disconnected, but the cutlass in his hand felt solid. For the first time, he truly noticed the fight all around him. There was Stark, firing with the repeating pistol loaded directly into his arm brace. Rogers, apparently satisfied that Clint had been handled, dived into the fray, rushing to the aid of a dark-haired woman Clint did not recognize. There was Phillip Coulson, a cutlass in both hands and a serene look on his face as he fought off two of the biggest men Clint had ever seen.
“Draugr,” Natasha said, reading his mind in that uncanny way she had, as though nothing had changed between them. “Loki’s enslaved everybody on this ship-”
“That much I remember,” Clint said.
“-And if you’re under the influence too long, you turn into that.”
Clint looked at the pale, green skin of the men Coulson was fighting and felt himself go a bit green at the gills himself. “Thank you,” he said and though he didn’t use specifics, Natasha gave him a nod. “What about the ones that aren’t full Draugr? The ones like me?”
“They’ve a mark somewhere on their person.” Natasha’s eyes flicked down to the bleeding cut on his chest. “You cut it, Loki loses the thrall.”
“Seen him anywhere? I’ve a hankering to put an arrow through his eye-socket.”
“When I do, you will be the first to know.”
She nodded at him, once, in support, and that was that. Clint began to climb to where he would be more useful, and Natasha jumped into the melee below. No matter that he wished she would stop to bandage that hand first, she had her priorities and he had his. And he needed to be up high with his bow, picking off the Draugr that threatened his crew-mates and as ever, keeping watch over the Black Widow.
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
Author’s Notes: There are some more nautical terms in this section you should probably know, just FYI. boltrope - strong rope stitched to the edges of a sail; buntline - rope attached to the middle of a square sail to haul it to the yard; capstan - upright device for winding in heavy ropes or cables (if you saw the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie, they use a capstan to summon the kraken); fighting top - a platform that could serve as a rest area for sailors working the sails-during battle, sailors could fire muskets or toss grenades from this platform, generally located below the crow’s nest; halyard - rope used for hoisting sails; repeating pistol - an anachronism used by the author to make sure Tony Stark’s weaponry is the most advanced, as this type of pistol was not invented until years after this fic takes place; stay - large rope used to support a mast;
10. A Twist in the Wind
“Ah, Romanova.” Stark’s voice was dry as he joined her up on the deck the next morning. A few of the crew had been roused already, their heads much sorer for the libations imbibed the night before, while Stark looked only a little sleepy. He was clutching a mug of Volstagg’s coffee like a lifeline. “I look forward to the day when you discover the regular pleasures of things like sleep, a willing bedmate, and a good glass of wine.”
“Sleep well?” Natasha asked without looking up from the ship’s log, over which she was bent.
“Tolerably, yes.” Stark eyed her. The scent of coffee drifted over to Natasha and she missed, in that moment, the coffee served in her homeland: strong and bitter enough to clear out one’s sinus cavities. It would certainly make handling Stark easier. She expected him to wander on down the deck or to start talking incessantly, two of his regular morning hobbies. The shipwright and inventor slept less than most of the crew, but he greeted the day the way he’d left it behind: rambling on about whatever struck his fancy. How Pepper tolerated it, Natasha truly did not understand, but for all of their dysfunctional past, the two somehow made the relationship work. Natasha suspected that their fondness for each other was the reason neither had ever returned to England, though Stark could have garnered them both pardons for the piracy misdeeds in an instant. That was what happened when you owned most of the wealth in England.
Stark, however, did not start talking. Instead, he settled on the gunwale and silently stared into the sunrise. He was in shirtsleeves once more, the right sleeve unbuttoned so that the dull metal bracketing his arm from shoulder to wrist was visible beneath the fabric. During the day, he made sure that both the iron calf and the brace were well hidden, no matter how much their tunics stuck to their backs in the hot sun. She never precisely forgot that he had the iron limbs, but many of the others had.
Eventually, Natasha looked up from the ship’s log to watch the sunrise as well. Somewhere, Clint was seeing the same sunrise.
“It occurs to me that you and I have never gotten along,” Stark said, breaking their silence so suddenly that she looked over at him in surprise.
“You don’t like liars.”
“You lie more than you tell the truth, yes.” Stark gestured at her with his mug. “Have a care to deny that?”
Natasha went back to looking at the log, the sunrise no longer holding anything of interest for her.
“Five years ago, I was respectable,” Stark said. “A respectable man, looked up to in many of the circles of the Ton. I had admirers. Granted, mind you, I have never been a moralistic man, nor a particularly religious one-though I of course keep the family pew at St. Paul’s.”
“Of course,” Natasha said, wondering where his inane prattle was going to lead them now.
“But five years ago, my world was small. Contained. I thought myself cultured and erudite, a man with stories of adventures very few could tell. But I was wrong. It is now that I know that. I have done things in these past five years that I would never have dreamed in the life I led from Grosvenor Square. But those experiences, they have taught me that honesty is not measured in blacks and whites. It is not a quantifiable thing. A man can be a liar, but he can also be a good man.”
“A man could also lie and be an absolute thatch-gallows,” Natasha said.
Stark nodded, gesturing with his cup that that was precisely what he had meant. “You and Barton, you’ve done foul things in your life, but you live by your own code, do you not? And it is an honest a code as it can be.”
“Far more honest than most pirate codes, it could be said,” Natasha agreed, wary now. She still couldn’t quite put Stark’s intentions together, though she sensed that something was afoot.
“Too right. And because of that, I think you and I should declare a truce between us and become friends.”
“I beg your pardon?” Natasha asked.
Stark gestured with his mug again. “You get on with the rest of the crew, do you not? Certainly, some of the deckhands likely wet their trousers when you give them that glare-that one right there, incidentally-but even Miss Foster calls you Nat.”
“And you have a hankering to be on such familiar terms with me?”
“Woman, you have a way of saying the word ‘Stark’ like it is drenched in hemlock.”
The exasperation in Stark’s voice made her smile. “And you would prefer I call you Tony? I can make that sound equally distasteful, if you like.”
“I’ve no doubt of it, but I would prefer it if we put this animosity in our pasts and moved forward as, if not close friends, at least allies.”
“I’ve always been your ally, Stark,” Natasha said. When he gave her a frustrated look, she considered. She did not much like the man. She respected his brilliance, for they would have been hard-pressed to find a finer sailmaster. Stark, for all of his faults, pulled his weight. The man just rubbed her the wrong way, like an itch between the shoulder blades that she could not shake. In that moment, it struck her that they had both held onto grudges that she herself would have let pass years before out of apathy. When she searched herself to find out why she had harbored such a grudge, she did not like the answer. A form of penance over Bucky’s death was so…common. Nor did she like Clint’s voice in the back of her mind telling her that he had told her so, that Stark wasn’t such a horrible gent.
“But perhaps I have been a bit cold to you,” she said. “That does not forgive how exasperating you can be.”
“Nothing really does,” Stark-Tony-said with a smile. “So have we an accord? Friends?”
“You may not call me Tasha.” Natasha pointed at him. “Nat or Natasha only, and if I hear tell of your calling me Tasha, I will dismantle that arm brace while you sleep and feed it to the fishes.”
“You seek to limit me already? I am wounded.” Tony put his irony-gauntleted hand over the shard embedded into his chest. “Wounded.”
Natasha smiled and Tony toasted her with his mug. They fell back into the same silence from earlier. This time, Natasha turned from the ship’s log to the navigational charts she had nicked from the sailmaster’s quarters the night before.
Tony frowned. “How came you by those?” he asked.
“You’re a far heavier sleeper than you know.”
“You do understand how terrifying you are, correct?” Tony asked. “So, First Mate, just what is it about that chart that has drawn such fascination from a lowly sailor?”
“This mark here.” Natasha spread the chart over the deck and tapped the mark that had drawn her notice. “It looks like an island, but it bears no name.”
“The cartographer is an eccentric.” Tony drew a small book, bound in leather, from inside his tunic. “Read me the lines?” When Natasha had, he thumbed the pages until, frowning, he found the proper name. “Hmm.”
“Hmm?” Natasha echoed.
“This cannot be coincidence, my newfound Russian friend.” Tony held the book to her with his finger marking the name.
Natasha stared at it for a moment and then down at the smudge of ink on the map. “When was this chart plotted?”
“I paid the cartographer heavy coin for his most recent work. He assures me that he named many of the islands himself. One would be led to believe that such a declaration includes this particular island.”
“The Isla de la Luz Azur,” Natasha said, drawing out the Spanish syllables. The island of the blue glow. “Could it be that Loki has established a stronghold? It is directly in our path. We could be mistaken in our belief that Loki amassed a crew to attack a city.”
“Or…” Tony frowned.
“Or?”
“The island of the blue light, correct? I’ve no ear for Spanish, but ‘azur’ must be blue.”
“Aye.”
“Then…” Stark looked down at his chest. “The Lyskilden sank to the depths with Stane, but an artifact powerful enough to do this to all of us, there is no true way to discover whether or not it remains drowned, is there? The compass I designed for Rogers, it deals with locating the shard of the Lyskilden we assume is in Loki’s scepter.”
“You think the Lyskilden is on this isle?”
“We’ve witnessed much crazier happenings, Red.”
Natasha ran a hand over her face, tired and fearful and hating the uncertainty that set like a lump of bad porridge in her belly. “So it is possible we’ve been tracking the Lyskilden this entire time and Loki is somewhere else entirely.”
“That was always a possibility. Though, the Count of Jotunheim is a smart man. A clever one, certainly, as the crow calls. It could be that he has worked out the same compass I have and this island is his destination as well.” Tony shrugged his good shoulder. He picked up the navigational chart to study it. “If he has, we might be in luck for the first time on this journey.”
“How do you mean?”
“See here? There is a current.” Tony traced lines on the map with his fingertip. “If you will look in the book, the finer detail in the drawing of the map reveals that there is a natural harbor on the island’s eastern side. I can almost guarantee that if he is on that island, he will be in that harbor.”
“You think we might sneak up on the other side?” Natasha asked, putting it together.
“Smarter than I give you credit for, Nat.”
Natasha ignored the gibe. “We should alert Steve,” she said. “How much longer will the altered course take?”
“A half day’s hard sail, if I had to guess. Given time and knowledge of the weather patterns, I could provide a better estimate.”
“Best work up a better estimate while you can. I’m off to wake the captain and let him know of our findings.”
“Is that all the gratitude I am to receive?” Tony called after her as she strode off, leaving him to his charts. “If that’s the case, I’m not certain I want to be friends anymore!”
Natasha laughed as she headed below.
“It’s a strong theory,” Bruce said when they held a council in the wardroom while the crew worked away above. “The thought of the Lyskilden being dredged up from the sea this entire time, it makes me significantly uneasy, for reasons I am sure nobody here need question…”
“It is my responsibility,” Thor said, looking grim. He stood off to the side of the cabin with his arms over his chest, his sleep shirt billowing about his massive frame. The ties at his chest and wrists were undone. “Just as Loki is my responsibility.”
Natasha didn’t give a fig about responsibility. They had a problem; she needed solutions rather than claims of responsibility.
Steve also had his arms crossed over his chest. He stood at the head of the table. “I had always assumed that if somebody were to discover the Lyskilden, we would somehow be able to feel it,” he said.
“Why?” Tony asked. He pounded his fist into his chest, making the shard glow brightly for a brief second. Though a few of them flinched at the movement, that was the only outward reaction. “None of you felt that, correct?”
“We certainly heard it,” Bruce said.
“There is no mystical connection between us and the glowing blue box that cursed us. The only bonds we share are those of colleagues. I assure you, in our time apart, I gave Loki no more than a thought in passing. None of us felt the moment Loki took control of Clint’s faculties.”
Natasha stayed quiet. When she had gone to collect Bruce from the jungle, she had assumed Clint would be waiting for her when she returned to Tortuga, were he not called away on another of Fury’s errands. Clint had always waited for her. She always waited for him. But there was never a mystical feeling, deep inside, no ability to sense when the other was near or in peril. The only change was that of late, his smile had a way of making her heartbeat speed up. She needed no mystical Norwegian artifact to explain that, though.
“So how certain are we, then?” Steve asked.
“Whatever is on that island has something to do with the Lyskilden. Whether it be Loki’s purported shard in his scepter or the Lyskilden itself, I could not tell you, though.”
“So do we approach the isle with caution?”
“The Angel is light, and fast-and yare.” Natasha took a deep breath. “If St-Tony thinks we will lose only half a day at best, it may be worth it, Cap.”
“So your vote is for the alternate route?” Steve asked. He’d raised his eyebrow at the name.
“Aye.”
“Stark?”
“I cast my lot in with Red.”
“We need to mark this as the day that Natasha and Tony agreed upon something and perhaps celebrate with a feast,” Steve said, and both of them gave him the same sarcastic smile, which made him shake his head. “Doctor? Your Grace?”
“I am for the direct approach,” Thor said, “but I will go along with whatever the group decides as a whole. We have had discord before. It ended with the Captain and myself in the ice, my brother on the rampage, and Mister Barton unfortunately under the thrall of my brother’s spell. Whatever choice we make going forward, we do it together.”
“Good man,” Steve said. “Doctor Banner?”
“Caution is an approach we’ve never tried before,” Bruce said. “I for one would enjoy a bit of novelty.”
“Well put.” Steve nodded. “Very well. My deepest apologies, Your Grace, but it looks like we are to be sailing upon Tony’s alternate course.”
“A half day is not too much time to lose at sea,” Thor said with an incline of his head to the captain. “Though I confess that I am nervous that the Lyskilden may be once more on the surface.”
“Take heart,” Tony said. “We could arrive and discover naught but your evil brother and two hundred slaves under his thrall intent to cut us down where we stand.”
“Truly, Tony, you are a comfort to us all,” Natasha said.
“I try,” Tony said, presenting to her a courtly bow.
11. The Isla de la Luz Azul
Their meeting proved held in vain: a tempest rose that afternoon, requiring all hands on deck. Even Jane and Darcy were called upon, Jane bringing sustenance to the crew as they battled to keep the sea from sweeping away pieces of the Angel , and Darcy leaping at Natasha’s commands. She was underfoot more than she was on hand, but the brunette soldiered on so bravely that Natasha reevaluated everything she had thought about Jane’s lady’s maid. The storm raged throughout the night, breaking the next day into rainfall that proved more of a discomfort than a true hindrance. It gave Natasha and Pepper time to lash themselves to the mizzentop yard and repair a giant tear in the topsail. Coulson and Bruce used the reprieve to repair what lines they could and replace those they couldn’t, while Tony fixed the belaying pins. After some time, Darcy joined the two at the topsail, putting her lady’s maid skills to good use.
When Tony made a comment about the sewing being women’s work, Pepper ‘accidentally’ dropped her boot on his head. He gave them a look of wounded innocence before he stalked off.
“What?” Pepper asked when Natasha and Darcy gave her impressed looks. “It prevents Natasha from shooting him.”
“Waste of a good bullet,” Natasha said. The rain made for less than ideal conditions, but the winds were calm enough that they did not have to remove the sail completely and haul it to the deck. If Darcy occasionally gripped the yardarm in terror when the ship caught on a swell, Natasha could not blame her.
The sun did not appear until the day after that, which meant that they had no true way of knowing how far off course they had been blown. Broken lines were mended or replaced, a new coating of tar was laid down over damaged gunwales. Natasha kept her anxiety in hand by filling her hours: teaching Jane and Pepper to wield a cutlass, arguing with Tony, providing whatever assistance with the carpentry that Bruce required. After supper, Steve challenged her to a chess match. He beat her resoundingly, and Natasha knew it was because she was more distracted in worrying about Clint than she cared to admit.
The cry of “Land, ho!” pulled them all from their cabins the next morning. Hogun, who had first shift watch, waved as the Avengers scrambled to the fo’c’sle to get a look. Stark hurriedly pulled his reference book from his pocket and flipped through to the proper page. “Oh, Poseidon’s mercy,” he said. “It’s the Isla de la Luz Azul-and we’re in luck, to be coming up upon the other side.”
“So Loki might be on the other side of the island?” Steve asked.
“Or the Lyskilden, if we’re truly unlucky.”
“Let us hope for luck and pray for mercy,” Steve said.
“Amen,” Coulson said, kissing his St. Christopher’s medal.
“Rouse the crew, all hands on deck,” Steve said. “Prepare to drop anchor.”
Immediately, they scrambled to obey. Natasha’s heart, which had been in her throat from the moment she’d heard Hogun’s call, settled somewhat, though not enough for comfort. Soon, she would know if they’d found Loki or not. But before she could hurry off to trim her sail, Steve grabbed her arm. “Once we’ve dropped anchor, gather Sif and His Grace and come to my quarters. How mad would you say Coulson is?”
“Given the inclination, he could make Tony Stark look like a sane man, Cap’n.”
“Wonderful. He can come along.”
“Somebody should tell Captain Rogers he is cork-brained.”
Sif, as it turned out, was not at all fond of the jungle. The Isla de la Luz was of a much rougher terrain than the island where they had been enslaved with their minds imprisoned. Certainly, the woman warrior was cheerful-she was never anything less, Natasha had discovered-but she was also unafraid of making her opinion known.
“Come, Lady Sif,” Thor, who was bringing up the rear of their odd quartet, walking along behind Coulson, “surely you must enjoy the chance to be off of the ship.”
“There are bugs as big as my fist, Your Grace,” Sif said.
Natasha personally found that complaint perfectly valid. Behind Sif, Coulson gave her a bland smile.
“Tell ye what,” she said, whacking at another frond with her machete so that it would allow them to pass. “We all survive this mission, and I’ll tell the captain so myself. To his face, even.”
“Did you not just call our captain a round mouth rattlepate just yesterday?” Sif looked confused.
“She did not say that the occasion would be a rare or particular one,” Coulson said.
“I like this,” Sif said. “I enjoy this informality you share with your captain, your crew. I have every hope that we will not perish at the hand of Lord Jotunheim so that this happiness may continue.”
“We will do our best,” Natasha said, tossing a salute over her shoulder.
There was no map of the island, so Natasha had borrowed one of Tony’s compasses-since they were friends now, she had asked first. She had her cutlasses strapped to her back, but she’d left her brace of blunderbusses with Jane. Thor had his battle hammer swinging loosely from his fist. With his Lyskilden-based powers, he could destroy a mainmast with that hammer alone, so it reassured Natasha somewhat to see it. Coulson had a brace of knives across his chest and a cutlass on his belt, mirroring Sif’s own collection. They hiked east, hoping that they would arrive on the other side of the island by nightfall. An hour past dusk was the time Steve had marked for a potential attack. The Angel was going to invade the harbor, ship or no ship, and hopefully the three of them would reach it in time for any battle that ensued.
It wasn’t one of Steve’s better plans, but it beat sitting on a ship all day waiting.
Three hours later, they paused to eat and rest; it would not aid anybody to exhaust themselves before they had even reached the ship. Sif and Thor at least made the hike interesting. There were tales of legends from their home country to share, even if they stumbled over a few of the English words for the tales. Sif was regaling them all with a tale of the great Heimdall when they reached the acme of the island. The harbor spread out below them, widening out into an impossibly blue sea.
“Oh,” Sif said, stopping in mid-sentence.
As one, the four of them looked at the ship in the cove. “Loki,” Coulson said.
Natasha bit back any relief she might feel. The ship, which she assumed that Loki must have stolen, was a frigate, crewed by anywhere between a hundred and fifty to two hundred. From the reports Fury and Coulson had given them in Tortuga, the ship was likely operating at capacity. How many of those people still had their humanity, Natasha wondered? How many had become full Draugr? If the fisherman had told her aright in Tortuga, there might be a fair few on that ship. Clint might be among them.
She took a breath, reminded herself that Clint was one of the most stubborn chubs in the Caribbean. If there was anybody that could resist becoming a Draugr, it would be him. He would be too busy arguing some trivial point to succumb to such simplicity of mind.
“Come,” she said. “The sun will draw low in the sky, and we need to be on the shore by the time that happens.”
They headed down to the beach. It was tricky to stay out of sight, but Coulson discovered a set of caves off to one side of the sand that could shield them until dark fell. It was only a matter of waiting, which wouldn’t take long; the sun was already beginning to melt into the horizon.
“What do you suppose he’s doing upon this island?” Coulson asked as he passed out their supper rations. “What is the lure for him?”
“Perhaps he heard the island’s name?” Thor asked. “He must have come to the same conclusion we did.”
“Something feels off,” Coulson said, shaking his head.
Natasha nodded. She decided, rather than wrinkling her nose at the offered rations, to chew and swallow quickly, washing the foul taste down with her canteen. “I know not what.”
“I suppose we’ll have to find out the difficult way.” Coulson finished his own rations and settled back against the cave wall. To Natasha’s amusement, he shut his eyes and dropped off to sleep on the spot. This seemed like a fine idea to both Sif and Thor, for each followed suit, leaving Natasha to keep watch. She did not mind. It gave her time to stare across the darkening harbor and at Loki’s ship, as though the power of her gaze alone would draw Clint to her.
Eventually, slowly, the sky darkened to the appropriate hue that would hide their trek across the sand. Natasha awoke her companions, and they moved off as a pack. At the edge of the water, they all removed their boots, tying them over shoulders and around necks. Thor, as the strongest swimmer, led the way, his giant hands cutting through the water like paddles. Natasha had learned to swim as a child, after her time in the palace, so she did not fear the long swim. When they reached a certain distance from the ship, she took a long, deep breath, filling her lungs with air, and dove beneath the surface.
There were no shouts when she surfaced again, this time next to the hull of the ship. A second later, Sif’s head popped up, water streaming off of her hair. She gave Natasha a questioning look. Natasha shrugged in reply. When Thor and Coulson joined them by the hull, she gave each a tiny salute and began to climb. It was difficult because the hull was slippery, slimed from years of the sea, but she gritted her teeth and held on. She could hear the hiss of Coulson’s breath next to her whenever he slipped.
By the time she reached the gunwale, her muscles were burning so hard that she could taste citrus on her tongue. She breathed carefully: in once, out once.
This was the part of the plan, she knew, that included the most risk. Loki would have a watch-team if he was a smart sailor, and she had no way of knowing if the Angel was truly coming or if calamity had befallen the ship in the day they had been apart from it. But considering that she was clinging to the hull of the enemy’s ship, it was a mite too late to back out of it now.
“Godspeed be with you,” she whispered to her companions and, hauling herself level with the gunwale, she peered over it. There were a few sailors upon the deck, but nobody was actively looking her way. Trying not to groan from the effort, she pulled herself over the side and landed with cat’s feet on the deck. She streaked across it, ducking behind a pile of rigging. While she untied her boots from her shoulder, she risked a couple of peeks at the sailors wandering around and had to fight down a strong feeling of deja vu.
Sif joined her after a moment, strengthening the sense of deja vu. “These sailors, they are possessed, yes?”
“Yes, like you and the others were on the island.” Natasha pulled one boot on and then the other, keeping her movements silent. Loki had marked these slaves with his scepter, she knew, according to Coulson and Fury. If they were anything like the fisherman back in Tortuga, each would bear a symbol somewhere on their skin. Natasha suspected that breaking the symbol-in the fisherman’s case, with the swipe of a sword-would break the trance.
Provided, she thought as she and Sif watched a sailor that had to be at least nineteen hands tall stride by, a blank look in his eyes, they had not already completed the change to Draugr. There must be some full Draugr by now, for no human could be that tall naturally. There was a waxy gray cast to the sailor’s skin that she could not be certain was the darkness or an effect of Loki’s sorcery.
“Clint will be up high,” she said, speaking softly to avoid being overheard. “Remember, keep silent. If you cannot break the thrall silently, do not risk it.”
“You go, see to your hawk-eyed sailor, madam. Duke Asgard, Mister Coulson, and myself will fare quite well here on deck.” Sif smiled, and for a moment, there was a touch of the predator behind her eyes.
“Very well. Could I get a leg up?”
Sif plucked her up-like she had during their battle in the jungle-and tossed Natasha. The redhead barely managed not to curse, but she did catch the main yard and haul herself up. Apparently, she thought as she steadied herself, trusting that the darkness would keep her from view, the effects of whatever Loki had done to the warriors in the jungle had indeed lasted.
When she was steady, she ran along the yard, grateful for all of that acrobatic training that allowed her to run unaided by any of the lines. The ship was large enough to have a fighting top on the main mast-which was the second of three, though she did not see anybody on the mizzen mast or the fore mast-but Clint wouldn’t be there. Not if the ship also had a crow’s nest. Even so, real fear coursed through her gut as she shimmied up the main mast, clinging to the bottom of the fighting top for a second. A quick swing of her legs to get some momentum and she flipped upward, landing easily on the small platform-
And startling the sailor on watch there.
Before the man could even open his mouth, she tumbled forward into a handspring, wrapping her thighs around the man’s neck. By steeling all of the power in her abdomen and lurching forward, she was able to flip him over entirely so that she was almost sitting on his face. She twisted about to cuff him viciously with the hilt of her knife, hoping nobody had heard the obvious thump of his body hitting the platform.
“Sorry, Parker,” she said when she recognized the young man. Knowing it was time she didn’t have, she hauled up on his shirt, searching desperately for a mark, any mark.
She found it on the side of his ribcage. So, she thought, Loki did not mark every victim in the same place. “My apologies,” she whispered, and gave him a shallow slice over the symbol, neatly bisecting it. She wiped the blade on his tunic and sheathed it, for there was no way she was going to climb up the mast with a knife in her teeth. Especially not a knife with a man’s blood on it.
Leaving Parker behind, she began to climb. She was younger than thirty, she thought, but she had done several crazy, foolish things in her life. Dangerous, deadly, awful things. She had killed people her half-brother wanted dead for years, until she’d broken free and had killed people for money rather than loyalty before entering into service. The scales upon her personal balance were tipped unequivocally toward death and despair. And now, she thought, she was likely on her way to join all of her victims. She was willingly entering Clint’s territory, where she knew he had a bow, deathly accuracy, and the hearing of the birds. She had no fear of heights, but unlike Clint, she did not thrive in that atmosphere. In all truth, she knew, she was about to die.
She would free Clint first.
Every muscle was tensed as she finally reached the crow’s nest, both ears cocked for any noise on the deck that indicated they had been discovered. And what was keeping the others? The Angel should have been there by now. She pulled herself up to just beneath the crow’s nest, sliding one of her cutlasses free from its sheath as quietly as she could. Coiling all of the power in her left arm, she hauled herself up.
The platform was empty.
Natasha landed on both feet, immediately looking about for any signs of Clint. Had something happened to him? The crow’s nest was his space. She turned…
There he was, five meters away, balanced easily on the rigging. It was all wrong, she could see that in an instant, his expression was off and his eyes were an unnatural, eerie blue. He had an arrow aimed straight at her left eye socket.
Every part of her went cold as though it had been her, and not Steve or Thor, in that ice.
“Greetings,” he said.
Before he could shoot, however, the crack of cannon fire sounded. It rocked the boat so much that Natasha had to leap for a rope and Clint’s shot went wide.
The cavalry had arrived.
12. Aboard the Trickster
His arrow missed.
Something tugged at Clint’s collarbone, perhaps, a certain knowledge and disbelief. It was tempered with the stronger feeling of relief, but Clint ignored all of those emotions because Loki would not like those emotions. He knew of what Loki would approve and what he would not, even if there was no Loki standing there, guiding his actions or making suggestions. Clint understood in his very bones that he had no other purpose on this earth than to serve Loki.
Loki wanted Natasha dead.
The explosion of cannon fire from below sounded once more. His superior sense of hearing informed him that those were the indeed Angel’s guns. That was how Natasha must have arrived. He categorized the noise, dismissed it as his secondary problem, and focused on Natasha instead. He was to kill her. She swung around the boltrope she’d clutched when the ship had rocked. His arrow missed her by centimeters, as did the next one he fired off as she ran straight at him along the rope.
She jumped and hit him in the chest with both boots. He stumbled back, grabbing a buntline to steady himself. It proved a giant mistake: Natasha used his discombobulation to kick him again, this time behind the knee.
Pain exploded up his leg. Clint ignored it because Loki would find it unimportant. Still, he lost his balance and dropped, catching himself on the same rope he’d been balanced upon. He correctly anticipated that Natasha would follow him down and swung out with his bow. It caught her on the elbow; she grunted and swung backward, away from him. Perfect. If she got close enough to wrap her legs around him, he had no hope of surviving.
As one, they hauled themselves back onto the rope, which swayed and danced in the wind. Clint swung his bow at her again. She dropped low and tried to sweep his legs out from under him. It gave him the opportunity to nock an arrow and fire it off at her.
She dropped once more, swinging all the way around the rope in a circle like an acrobat. She used the momentum to launch herself at Clint again. The blade in her hand caught the moonlight. Natasha came at him, slicing wildly enough to let him know she was trying to force him back. Clint blocked the strike with his bow and stepped in, wanting to knock her from the rope. She could survive a bit more than most folk, but if she fell to the deck from this height, it would make his job so much easier.
Loki wanted her dead.
Loki wanted Clint to kill her slowly, closely, intimately, but dead was dead, in the end.
Clint jabbed out hard with his left fist. It hit the side of Natasha’s ribcage, making her let out a soft cry and step backwards. Perfect. He followed that up, intending to broadside her with the bow once more. She went backward, dodging the hit but failing to gain her footing.
Once again, she caught the rope when she fell. Clint stomped hard on her knuckles. Natasha cried out once more, but did not release her grip. Instead, she flung the knife in her other hand at him. Clint leapt back, his arms windmilling as he tried to steady himself on the rope. Natasha grunted as she hauled herself back up onto the rope, balancing precariously with no guidelines about to help her out. Below them, smoke and shouts drifted up, cutting in and out of Clint’s subconscious.
He steadied himself, snatched an arrow from his quiver. She raced toward the crow’s nest.
He let the arrow fly. Natasha hit the platform in a skid, ducking easily below the arrow so that it sprouted from the mast. Clint grabbed another and loosed it right behind the first, but Natasha was too fast for him. As little more than a blur in the darkness, she launched herself out off of the platform and into the open air. Clint grabbed a third arrow even as Natasha clutched a halyard line. It didn’t even slow her momentum. Again, his arrow missed her by the slightest distance. She was already in mid-flight once more, both feet aimed solidly at his shoulder.
Twin feelings of satisfaction and frustration hit him right before she did.
He tumbled backwards, losing his footing. There was a brief, exhilaration of weightlessness, like he’d become one of the birds he so admired, before something wrapped around his forearm. His free fall jerked to a stop. He looked up to realize that Natasha was hanging upside down from the rope by her legs, her hand wrapped around his forearm. Her face was strained from the pressure.
He snatched an arrow from his quiver and stabbed it into her hand, digging in a good inch.
She gasped. “Damn your blackguard soul, Barton,” she said through gritted teeth, and Clint felt a smile, unnatural and cruel, spread over his face. Blood dripped down like warm water onto his arm. He moved to twist the arrow-how dare somebody as lowly as she catch him, Loki’s faithful servant?-but another knife appeared in her free hand. He got a cut across the back of his own hand for his trouble.
He shook the offended limb and glared at her.
“An eye for an eye, a cut for a cut,” she said, canting an eyebrow at him as she pulled the arrow from her hand.
The reek of cordite and gunpowder clogged the air. “Filthy quaen,” Clint said, and tried to pull free.
Natasha Romanova did not have preternaturally astounding strength for nothing, though. Even as Clint tried to struggle his way out of the grip, she grimaced and swung her body so that Clint was tossed about like a poppet on the wind. Before he could figure out what her purpose was, she released him.
He flew again for the briefest of moments before his boots slammed hard into the fighting top. Parker lay upon it, quite unconscious. Clint didn’t let that bother him. Natasha, the minute she’d freed Clint, she pulled herself to her feet on the rope, way above his head. She sprinted gracefully across the rope, never missing a step.
His arrow missed her yet again.
“B-Barton?” Parker, below him on the fighting top, stirred and looked up at him. “Wh-what is happening? Why does my head feel like-”
Clint kicked him; the man dropped to the platform, unconscious.
Unfortunately, it had distracted him from tracking Natasha. She’d used the opportunity to slip from sight, which meant that with her agility and speed, she could be anywhere in the cordage. Clint tuned out the calls of his fellow sailors-they had Loki, they had enough leadership, his immediate problem was Natasha and Natasha alone-and scanned the masts, searching for any sign of his red-headed foe. She was crafty and quick. He’d seen her sneak upon a pack of a dozen men and drop all but three or four of them within a minute.
That was not even to consider the night she had become a widow.
She is sentimental. He heard the voice like Loki’s in his head. Loki would think her unable to kill him, but Clint knew better. Natasha had told him of the life she had led, the way she had been raised in that red room in Russia. Make that her undoing, Barton. She will feel responsible to end you up close. Lure her in.
He kept his bowstring pulled to his ear as he searched, those sharp eyes that were a gift of the Lyskilden scouring every inch of canvas and rope. She was quiet, quieter than a cat. He had no hope of hearing her, but his eyesight was legendary. The very instant she slipped up, he would know where she was and he would kill her.
Movement up and to his left made him twist. He fired off an arrow. It missed. He grabbed a second arrow, but she’d disappeared behind the fore topgallant mast. He waited patiently for her to resurface.
He was the osprey on the wind. The osprey could wait hours for its kill.
The second time she appeared, it was to his right, about four meters up. Clint’s arrow hit the mast where Natasha had been less than a second before. Even as he reached for yet another arrow, she sliced through a stay and swung down. She cut his next arrow from the air with her cutlass.
He dropped the bow and swapped it for his cutlass, meeting her opening strike with a parry of his own. It wasn’t easy for them to fight, not with Parker in the way. Natasha was the superior with the blade, but her hand was injured and he was stronger, far stronger than he had ever been. Every day on the Trickster, his strength grew. He swept the cutlass at her legs, intending to cut them from beneath her.
She jumped high, bouncing one boot off of the mast, and bore down upon him with the sword, a knife glinting in her free hand. He blocked the sword, but the knife tip caught him, dragging a long, shallow, painful cut up his bicep.
He glared. Natasha looked both pained and challenging in reply.
“Are you yourself yet?” she asked, attacking him with a move she’d taught him three years hence.
Clint blocked. “That’s a silly question, princess.”
There was the slightest falter in her step. In a move that some fighters might consider unsporting, she brought her sword crashing down, aiming for his fingers. He yelped and nearly dropped the cutlass. Something deep inside him wanted to laugh. It puzzled him.
Clint retaliated by trying to cut her leg at the hamstring. Natasha kicked off the mastpole and cuffed him on the side of the head with her closed fist, the knife-tip ripping at the collar of his shirt. He moved his head to deflect most of the blow, but twisted about, grabbing Natasha with his free arm. They stood like that for a moment trapped in time, swords locked, Clint’s hand gripping Natasha’s shoulder.
She looked into his eyes.
And then she punched him.
Clint tottered on the edge of the platform, shocked. Natasha spat out a wad of blood, kicked off once more, and launched herself at him, hitting him in the chest even as she caught him with her legs. The sensation of falling once more made his stomach leap to his throat, but Natasha had her legs wrapped around his midsection. She grabbed a rope, slashing it with her cutlass at the same time. Instead of flying, they swung down to the deck together.
“Steve!” he heard Natasha say, and then they hit something solid, warm, and human. “Hold him.”
Arms like iron cables wrapped around him even as Natasha flipped away. Clint struggled; it was smoky and dark and he couldn’t see a thing, but he heard the cacophony of pistol fire and the clash of swords over the hoarse shouts of screaming men. “B-Barton?” he heard a familiar voice close to his ear ask, and he knew that he was being held down by none other than Captain Rogers himself.
“Hold him, Steve. I need to find his mark.”
When Natasha tried to come closer, Clint kicked out at her. They would not take him prisoner. He was Loki’s servant. He would go down fighting or not at all, and this was not acceptable. He struggled hard, trying to get the hand that was still gripping his sword.
“Our Lord in heaven, what in the name of St. Christopher-he’s far stronger than he should be!” Rogers said as Clint fought on.
“He’s not full Draugr,” Natasha said.
“Sure feels like it.”
Clint tried to elbow Steve, kicking against the deck and doing everything he could to free himself. Steve’s grip only tightened, infuriating the archer. This sort of imprisonment was far below him. He should be out there, fulfilling Loki’s wishes and slicing Natasha’s skin from her bones. By luck, he struggled free, only to leap forward and hit the flat of Natasha’s arm across his chest. He hit the deck hard, his breath rushing from his lungs. The cutlass was kicked from his hand and he was once again hauled to his feet, this time wheezing and out of breath.
“Have you finished?” Natasha asked, looking completely unimpressed.
He cursed at her in the Romani tongue.
She tilted an eyebrow. And then to his surprise, she darted in with a knife, aiming for the shoulders of his jerkin. “Woman-what are you-”
“Calm yourself!” Rogers ordered, and it was so like the long list of orders Clint had taken from the man since his time on the Ferrous that Clint nearly obeyed. Only Loki’s tiny voice at the back of his mind reminded him that he was meant for far more than this, that it was his duty to get free and to take down these puny, insignificant mortals. His cursing increased tenfold.
Natasha looked completely unflappable as she cut the rest of his jerkin away from him. She left a swath of blood from her wound on his collarbone. “Of course,” she said after a moment.
“What?” Rogers asked. “What is it?”
A pistol shot shattered the yardarm directly over their heads, raining down splinters upon them.
“Loki put the mark directly over his heart, like the marks in the ice.”
What was she even talking about? Natasha laid a hand on his chest and Clint’s head suddenly felt muddled and slow, as though he’d drowned his sorrows in drink the night before and was paying for it with a sore head now. “Back, you hell cat,” he managed to say, though his words were slurred.
“My deepest apologies, Clint,” Natasha said, and sliced him in the chest with her knife.
It was not a deep cut. He’d been injured in battle before, knew how to categorize wounds even in the state of high adrenaline, to know when he was deeply wounded or not. This was a shallow slice, just the bare tip of Natasha’s knife, little more than a scratch on his chest. Why it would cause his head to feel as though it might explode like a mortar, or for his bones to sing out once in sudden, sharp, and vibrant agony, he didn’t know. He shouted so hard that his throat hurt and sagged so abruptly that Steve dropped him.
He hit the deck face-first and lay there.
Sensations slowly trickled in. He could hear the unmistakable noise of battle, as familiar to him as any gypsy’s song, but he felt more. Suddenly, it was like his head was all his own, like his thoughts were no longer coated in blue. His world and vision were no longer rimed with him. When he looked at Natasha, he saw nothing but red, red hair and green eyes and pale skin.
And every single thing that had been buried behind a wall of his subconscious broke through.
“Clint?” Natasha was suddenly beside him, crouching close. Her expression, which he hadn’t been able to fully read before beyond the things Loki wanted him to see, spoke volumes. To anybody else, it would have been almost a dispassionate look, but Clint knew better. There were dark circles under her eyes, fear and hope equally mixed behind those same eyes.
“Tasha,” he said, since he couldn’t seem to say anything else.
For the tiniest of instants, she seemed to collapse in on herself, as though she’d lost all of her strength, but he blinked and she was his Natasha again. She reached down and pulled him to his feet. “Welcome back. How do you feel?”
“Like I fought a whiskey barrel and lost.”
“Well, clear your head, sailor, we’ve a battle to fight.” She tossed him his cutlass.
No passionate embrace, Clint thought, not for people like them. He wasn’t sure he deserved it. Loki had been the compelling force behind every single one of his actions, but his body had been the one Loki had used to harm her and the others. Everything inside his skull felt blurry and disconnected, but the cutlass in his hand felt solid. For the first time, he truly noticed the fight all around him. There was Stark, firing with the repeating pistol loaded directly into his arm brace. Rogers, apparently satisfied that Clint had been handled, dived into the fray, rushing to the aid of a dark-haired woman Clint did not recognize. There was Phillip Coulson, a cutlass in both hands and a serene look on his face as he fought off two of the biggest men Clint had ever seen.
“Draugr,” Natasha said, reading his mind in that uncanny way she had, as though nothing had changed between them. “Loki’s enslaved everybody on this ship-”
“That much I remember,” Clint said.
“-And if you’re under the influence too long, you turn into that.”
Clint looked at the pale, green skin of the men Coulson was fighting and felt himself go a bit green at the gills himself. “Thank you,” he said and though he didn’t use specifics, Natasha gave him a nod. “What about the ones that aren’t full Draugr? The ones like me?”
“They’ve a mark somewhere on their person.” Natasha’s eyes flicked down to the bleeding cut on his chest. “You cut it, Loki loses the thrall.”
“Seen him anywhere? I’ve a hankering to put an arrow through his eye-socket.”
“When I do, you will be the first to know.”
She nodded at him, once, in support, and that was that. Clint began to climb to where he would be more useful, and Natasha jumped into the melee below. No matter that he wished she would stop to bandage that hand first, she had her priorities and he had his. And he needed to be up high with his bow, picking off the Draugr that threatened his crew-mates and as ever, keeping watch over the Black Widow.