A/N the First: We've rescued our captain and our master gunner, so it's time to find Loki...or is it? Thanks to my pre-readers, my cheerleaders, my readers, and my beta mxpw!

Chapter 07
A New Sort of Compass

Their return to the Angel was met with raised eyebrows from Coulson and Pepper. "You were successful, I see," Coulson remarked as he gave Natasha a hand up from the longboat. He obviously noticed her wince, however, for his eyebrows went up even further. "Did you encounter trouble?"

"No. They encountered me," Bruce said, pulling himself up onto the deck.

"Oh." Coulson looked at their crew in surprise. "Was anybody hurt?"

"Minor injuries." When Steve, still a little shaky, pulled himself onto the deck of the Angel and looked about in confusion, Natasha cleared her throat. "Phillip Coulson, allow me to introduce to you Captain Steven Rogers, who, now that he has returned, will be taking over his duties in regards to the ship. Steve, your new quartermaster, Phillip Coulson."

She didn't recognize the look on Coulson's face—it certainly wasn't one she had ever seen him wear before. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Captain," he said, shaking Steve's hand with just a little too much vigor. "Barton has told me so much about your exploits when you took over the Angel, and can I say, it is just an honor to be serving aboard such a legendary ship."

She could tell that Steve wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but the captain gave the stoic nod that had probably gotten him far in His Majesty's Navy and returned the handshake. "Honor's all mine. Welcome aboard, and thanks for coming along."

"Perhaps somebody might offer assistance?" Stark asked from the side of the boat.

It took both Coulson and Steve to haul him aboard, as his iron leg and iron arm-guard weighed him down considerably. The minute he was on board, he held out his arm to Pepper. The gash in the sleeve caused by Fandral's sword was obvious. "Lady Pepper, could you be a dear and roll back my sleeve?"

"Heavens," Pepper said. "What did you do to yourself?"

"Why does everybody always assume it was me who did these things?" Stark asked.

"Because it usually is, Tony," Bruce said, clapping him on his good shoulder as he climbed on past. He looked positively gray with exhaustion. "I'm going to…"

"Help him to the surgeon's cabin," Natasha said to one of the deckhands and then glanced guiltily at Steve.

The captain only smiled. "Good to know she's been in good hands while I was frozen," he said. He signaled to two of the deckhands to haul the longboat aboard and began making his way to the quarterdeck. Sixteen months in the ice, Natasha thought, and none of them had entertained the notion of searching for him until Jane Foster had raised the idea of forming a hunting party to seek out her betrothed. Steve was the one, she thought, the one that would have gathered the crew to search for any of his missing crew members, which meant that nobody would search for Steve.

After introducing Thor and the others to Coulson, she joined Steve on the quarterdeck while he stared up, frowning at the masts above him. "Stark," she said by way of explanation, and he nodded. "He's made changes. She's a mite faster than you remember, Captain."

"I left her with him when Thor asked me to accompany him on a search for Loki. We had a much faster, smaller ship, one that could be crewed by the five of us. Nothing like the Angel." Steve rubbed a hand down his face. They had come up from the stern, so he hadn't seen the figurehead yet. Natasha wasn't sure what he would make of the visage of his dead love's face upon it. In truth, she wasn't sure what to make of Tony's using Peggy Carter's likeness on the figurehead. "It's so strange and so familiar, Nat."

"Yes. Do you know what happened to your other ship while you were on a strange island in the middle of nowhere encased in magical ice?" Natasha asked, diverting the subject since they were nearing the territory of things she never discussed with Steve. After the Ferrous had sunk and they had taken over their rescuing ship, turning it from the Deviant to the Angel, she had served as his first mate, but they had never been close. She had lost Bucky; he had lost Peggy and Bucky. Their loss should have united them. Instead, it had created a gulf between them, and it was easier to simply not speak of it.

"I'm afraid I don't remember," Steve said. "Thor and the others might, but…"

Natasha doubted it; Sif, Hogun, and Fandral had seemed rather chagrined about the fact that they'd been doing their level best to kill the crew of the Angel, but none of them had been able to explain why, and nobody had any memory of how they had come to be on the island.

"Perhaps it will come in time," Natasha said.

"Perhaps," Steve said, but he sounded like he doubted it. "Are we well-supplied?"

"Yes, but we've no idea where Loki is, so it matters little." Natasha adjusted her tricorn hat so that it blocked more of the sun. "The fisherman freed from his thrall did not know his destination or his bearings. I'm afraid we'll spend a few months asking about in ports if they've seen the blackguard's ship."

"Have a care of whom you speak," Thor said as he climbed aboard the quarterdeck. "Loki may be impetuous, but he is still of Norway and he is my brother."

"He enslaved the minds of over eighty people and killed forty more, that we know of."

"Well, he was just a fosterling." Thor flushed red.

"And we're fairly certain he's the one that did all of this to you, big fellow." Stark, the sleeve stripped back from his arm brace so that they could see the dent the blade had caused in the metal, joined them.

"All of this?" Thor asked.

"Who else do we know that has the juju to turn three fine warriors such as your crew into killers without reason or logic? And why put you in gigantic slabs of ice rather than kill you outright?" Stark patted Thor on the bicep as he walked by. "This was clearly Loki's work, as was the attack on Tortuga. We were all given…"

"A curse," Natasha said.

"Enhancements," Stark said, glancing at her. "I was about to say enhancements. We were given them the night that blade struck the Lyskilden. Until he disappeared, we thought Loki's were just to make him incorporeal. But clearly, that is not the case."

"And you think just because he turned an entire crew's worth of men and women into mindless Norwegian spirits, he also did this to Thor and Steve?" Natasha asked.

"Have you a better theory, Red?" Stark shoved his top hat back to scratch at his scalp. They had encouraged him to find a better hat, one that offered more protection from the sun's harsh caprices, but Stark clung steadfastly to the one last remnant of the life before Obadiah Stane had made him a prisoner and removed his leg. "In my time in the scientific field of study, and I'm sure Doctor Banner would agree with me if he weren't below passed out like a drunkard after a hard night suckling from the teat of any tavern in common London-town, I have always found that the simplest solution, for lack of a better explanation, is usually the truest."

"And when it isn't?" Steve asked.

"Then we come up with a new solution, but I think it's safe to operate under the idea that a man we know to be capable of sorcery is indeed behind the imprisonment of two men in ice without any adverse affects. And enslaving the mental faculties of three seemingly very bright Norwegians at the same time." Stark's gaze drifted over Sif, Hogun, and Fandral, who were clustered with Volstagg on the deck, no doubt getting acquainted with news of what they had missed in their sixteen months of being brainwashed.

Steve glanced at Natasha. She gave him a half shrug. "It's a sound theory," she said.

"Why do I feel like whenever she speaks well of me, I should get some sort of treat like a performing street animal?" Stark asked the deck at large.

Steve ignored him. "So let us say that Loki was the one that imprisoned Thor and me. Should we scour the island searching for clues of where the count might have gone?"

"It will be a fruitless task," Thor said. "My brother is cunning. If he has gathered such a large crew, he means it to attack some large town."

"The town with the best stronghold 'round these parts is Tortuga, and he's already scavenged it. Could he be gathering an army to attack Port Royal?" Pepper, who'd finally joined them on the quarterdeck, asked.

"We would have had word if Port Royal had been his destination," Natasha said. She eyed first Steve and then Thor and cursed the holes in their memories that could have possibly provided a satisfactory answer to these questions. "Perhaps it is somewhere out of the Caribbean."

"But unfortunately that still leaves an entire world of possibility open to him," Thor said.

"Yes." Steve ran a hand over his face again. Natasha did not envy him the concept of waking from a sixteen-month sleep to face a problem of this magnitude. "And we have no way of knowing which city he might be looking to attack?"

"Or ship," Pepper put in.

Steve only looked more tired.

"It's not like we have a compass that points right at where Loki has gone, though," Thor said, folding his massive arms over his chest. "Such a thing does not exist."

Stark, however, frowned.

"It would solve most of our problems, were such a thing to be had," Pepper said, nodding.

"A compass that did not point north would frighten the more superstitious on the ship," Steve said. "Would you ladies mind if I…" He gestured helplessly at the lapels of his coat, which was still dripping wet even though it had been nearly an hour since he had been pulled from the ice. "I am afraid the time in the cold has made the garment shrink…"

"No one will be offended here, Steve," Pepper said, patting him on the arm.

Natasha smirked with humor she didn't feel. "Need any help?"

Steve blushed and sidled away a step as he removed his coat. "I'm quite well, thanks." He set his coat off to the side. When he turned back around, Stark had begun to fumble with his own cravat. "I was not setting an example, Tony."

"No, no, no. You wished for a compass that might point us to Loki, did you not?"

"I do not see how that has anything to do with disrobing, Stark," Natasha said.

"I have one."

"One what?" Thor asked.

"One such compass." Stark undid the final fastening on his shirt, baring his chest to all of them. The shard of the Lyskilden embedded there glowed faintly even in the daylight. "On the night you came to rescue me aboard the Red Skull, I saw Loki bend as though he meant to scoop something up with his hand."

"But Loki could touch nothing," Thor said, squinting at Stark.

"Yes, and because I knew that, I convinced myself it must be a hallucination from the pain."

Natasha frowned. After they had been stranded on an island and rescued by the Deviant, they had mutinied and mounted a rescue to save Stark. The newly christened Avenging Angel had been swifter than the Red Skull, Obadiah Stane's ship, and they had approached from the leeward side of the ship, hoping to sneak upon the much larger frigate. They had sent Loki, whose curse allowed him to walk through walls, ahead to warn Stark that they were coming. Chaos had erupted during that battle. It had led to the Red Skull and its blood-splashed Jolly Roger sinking to the bottom of the ocean, nearly taking the demonic form of Bruce with it. Natasha had barely escaped with her life. The danger hadn't been at the hands of her enemies, but at the hands of Bruce himself. Even she, who had the most experience fighting among the crew, did not have clear memories of that fated night.

"There was a lot happening that night, Stark," she said. "It could still be a hallucination."

"Then how is it there are multiple accounts of the man holding a scepter, Romanova, when we know for a fact that for two years aboard the Angel, he could not even wield a dessert fork?" Stark asked.

Natasha had to concede the point. "You think he picked up a shard of the Lyskilden and placed it into that scepter, and that it allows him to touch things?"

"My hypothesis is that yes, he did. The magic in the cavern you described, on the island today. It glowed blue."

"It did."

"And what other sorcerous thing do we all know of that glows blue? Going back to my earlier statement—" Stark began to redo the fastenings on his shirt. "—there cannot be too many explanations. I think, given time and the proper lenses to magnify the light of my own piece of the Lyskilden, I can build a compass that will let us gather the direction Loki has traveled. And as familiar with the currents as I am in this region, I may be able to take you, if not his destination, at least I can give you his bearings. It's more than we have now."

"What are you waiting for, then?" Steve asked. "Get to work."

Stark gave him a very obnoxiously indifferent salute. "Aye-aye, Captain," he said, and, grabbing Pepper's sleeve, headed below.

"Have we extra clothing for the duke and myself?" Steve asked Natasha.

"No, but we've bolts of some cloth we were hoping to barter for information if we needed it."

"I made my own clothes when I was a cabin boy. I suppose one doesn't need to fall out of the habit." Steve shrugged.

Thor, on the other hand, looked uncomfortable, and Natasha could rightly guess why. Being royalty, clothing was handled by tailors and seamstresses. Thor had had the greatest adjustments to make on the two years they had been aboard the Angel together, but he had adapted well. Some things still gave him pause, though.

"Perhaps Miss Lewis may be able to offer you aid," Natasha said.

Thor's face immediately cleared. "That is a wonderful idea, Lady Romanova—" For no amount of correcting him could convince him that every woman shouldn't be addressed as 'Lady.' "—I shall ask her forthwith."

He headed across the deck to do just that, leaving Steve and Natasha standing there alone.

"In truth, they'll all need to sew their own clothing," Steve said, looking at Thor's three servants. "I recall setting sail with them in search of Loki, but after that, it grows…a bit dim, honestly."

"It will come to you in time, I've no doubt. Orders for now, though?" Natasha said.

"As much as I'd like to sail on and put this island in our wake, we'll give Tony some time to work on this mystical compass of his. No need to make sail and eventually have to turn around and retrace our steps."

"Aye," Natasha agreed. Since she spotted a deckhand that should have been in the bilge swabbing rather than on deck, she gave Steve a nod and started to head for the fo'c'sle. Steve, however, cleared his throat. "Something you need, Cap?"

"You haven't said where Clint is, Natasha." Steve regarded her seriously. "Is he…"

"He lives," Natasha said, and she could see Steve visibly relax. "But he was taken by Loki during the attack on Tortuga. So now he's on his way to becoming a Draugr."

And if that happened…he might as well be dead.

Natasha's stomach hurt.

"Tony's compass will work," Steve said, looking every bit confident in his assertion as Natasha felt doubtful.

"It had better," Natasha said, and jumped down, striding off and determined to put the fear of the Romanov Dynasty into a random deckhand. It didn't make her feel any better, but it gave her something to do.