A/N the First: Thanks to my pre-readers, cheerleaders, readers, and my beta, mxpw!

Chapter 14
Blowback

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

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

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

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

"I don't need to hear it."

"She didn't recognize you, Steve."

Steve said nothing.

"If that—that creature—"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And what was it, I wonder?"

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

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

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

"And Coulson reversed Loki's curse just tonight. It is possible."

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

"Then I shall find somebody else to take Peggy's curse." Steve turned back to the window.

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

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

"How will you find her, Steve?"

"The scepter—"

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

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

So she stood her ground and she waited.

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

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

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

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

If Peggy was a mermaid, did that mean Bucky…

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

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

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

"Certainly, my lady," Hogun said, executing a short bow.

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

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

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

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

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

"You could release me at once."

"I'm afraid I lack the key to do that, Lord Jotunheim."

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

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

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

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

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

"Love is for children," Natasha said.

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

"Perhaps?" Natasha asked, settling back on her haunches.

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

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

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

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

"I…beg your pardon?"

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

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

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

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

"I've a muzzle I can use if he annoys me," Bruce said, and Loki rolled his eyes.

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

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

"Trifling matters."

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

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

"Nay, but thank you nonetheless."

"Can you…"

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

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

"But you would remember the tales as long as you both live."

"He makes a solid argument," Natasha told Clint.

"Aye, he does."

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

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

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

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

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

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