The days passed slowly, and not having anything to do was driving the Captain and his shipmates mad. His crew, the one which is mentioned so frequently in this story, consisted of Sailing Master and Navigator Clint Barton; sometimes refereed to (mostly by himself) as Hawk-eye. Very good at his job, he had not gotten them lost once. Well. Perhaps once. But in his opinion that didn't count because everyone was highly intoxicated. Not his fault.
Also in the crew, there was the Boatswain Tony, in charge of repairs and adjustments to the ships engineering. Truly a genius, he can be trusted to keep the ship running and at her full potential. For most of the time, at least. And then there was the Doctor Banner, a seemingly quiet man that any would easily trust with their life. Without him to help when Bucky lost his arm, the Captain would surely be dead. And finally, in charge of artillery and weapons there was Thor. Bucky had never seen someone assemble a cannon as fast as he. Thor was very enthusiastic about his job indeed.
"There, there!" Clint cried with excitement from the crow's nest that he never seemed to leave. "We've got one!"
And so it was confirmed, there was ship cutting through the water not to far away. A ship that was, in fact, a part of the English Navy. Fantastic! They all scrambled to the deck, hoping to get a view of the boat. It wasn't that big, but it was obvious that there would be many soldiers on the ship that would need dealing with. How exciting! Bucky was waiting for a spotting like this for weeks.
"Positions, everyone!" Bucky called, pointing and flailing his arms about. Thor went down to the gun port to fire a warning shot. The boom rang in the Captain's ears, and he knew it was time to raise their flag. Looking over to the enemy ship he saw that they had actually hit them instead of just warning them. Oops. Well, it didn't matter really. He could tell already that they weren't the type to surrender. Soldiers always stand their ground.
The flag was raised.
And a beautiful flag it was. Black, like most pirate flags, and in the center a skull. But what made it different from the rest was the red star in the center of the head. The Captain designed it himself. Naturally over the years Bucky managed to gain some attention, and thus he needed a trade mark. Most sea Captains now a days knew the flag already, which made things all the more interesting. To further his public image, Natasha thought that he should start wearing smeared black paint around his eyes, thinking it would make him look more deadly. The affect was very convincing.
"Bruce you go join Thor in the brig. Tony, Natasha, Clint." He called with a smile. "You're coming with me." He waved a hand to beckon them over to the port of the ship, getting them ready to board the enemy. "Tony will you kindly stop the smiling? We could get killed today."
"Sorry." Tony replied, but did nothing to stifle his grin.
In seconds the naval ship was adjacent to their Carina. In a swift movement, almost entirely in sync, the Captain and crew had jumped over the small stretch of water that separated the ships, the foreign wood of the enemy's boat now underneath their feet.
"Well, well, well." Bucky said mischievously, raising to his feet and drawing his sword. His voice was almost a comedic tone. "What do we have here?"