Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sea stretched endlessly and black under the ink-wash of early dawn, whispering secrets no man had ever lived long enough to repeat. On its back rode The Widow’s Kiss, slicing clean through the mist like a blade through silk. She was a ship as much as a beast—sleek, silent when she wanted, vicious when she chose to bare her teeth. And her captain? Even worse.

Captain Natalia Romanova stood at the bow, long coat snapped around her legs like wings. She didn't need a spyglass—her eyes were sharp enough. Red hair braided back from her face, a flintlock at one hip, a curved sabre at the other, she looked carved from cold iron and sea-ice.

She hadn't spoken in two hours. Not a soul disturbed her silence. Behind her, the crew buzzed with life and purpose. Ropes strained, boots thudded, and a man laughed loud and long as someone was nearly knocked from the rigging.

"You're going to kill him, you overgrown anchor!" snapped a voice.

"Then maybe he should learn to tie a proper line!" called back Sam Wilson from the mainmast, grinning as he braced against the sway.

A mop of pale hair appeared below deck, and Clint Barton, the ship's first mate, squinted into the sun. "If one of you dies, I’m not telling the captain. I’m not in the mood to get thrown overboard before breakfast."

"You're never in the mood," muttered Tony Stark, wiping his hands on a grease-stained rag as he emerged from his workbench near the helm. He had a new contraption slung over one shoulder—part musket, part nonsense.

Clint gave it a pointed glance. "Does that thing work, or are you just trying to kill us all faster?"

"It's a prototype," Tony said, offended. "And yes. To both."

There was laughter—short, warm, and rare as gold. It was always like this on calm mornings. Jokes were knives tossed back and forth, good for distraction or bloodletting. You didn’t live long on the Widow if you couldn’t keep up.

But Clint’s smile faded when he reached the crates near the galley hatch. Something was off. The sack of dried apples had been opened—sloppily. And the heel of the bread was gone, but no one had been assigned to galley duty last night. He crouched, fingers brushing breadcrumbs, then narrowed his eyes at the faintest smear of red across a barrel rim. Jam. Someone had been here. Someone hungry. He stood slowly.

"Natalia," he called up the deck, voice low but carrying. She didn’t move at first. Then she turned her head—just enough. He jerked his chin toward the hold. The crew picked up on the shift in seconds. Sam stopped mid-joke. Tony set down the gun. Silence fell, heavy and expectant, as if the ocean itself leaned in to listen. Natalia walked down the stairs, slow and measured, her boots echoing on the wood.

"Explain," she said.

Clint gestured at the mess. "Wasn't like this yesterday. Someone’s been eating through our stores. Sloppy. Like they thought we wouldn’t notice."

Tony snorted. "We’re pirates. We notice everything. Especially when it’s food."

"And it wasn’t a rat," Clint added. "Rats don’t open crates. Or smear jam like a toddler."

A flicker passed over Natalia’s face, too quick to catch. “Search the hold.”

The crew sprang into motion—Sam moving with the easy force of someone who’d fought in tighter corners, and Tony complaining all the way down the ladder.

“You know,” Tony muttered, “if this turns out to be another damn cat, I swear to God—”

"It’s not a cat," Sam said.

A beat later, he added, “Cats don’t eat apples. And they don’t breathe this loud.”

The crew froze. Below, from behind a curtain of stacked crates, came the faintest sound. Breathing. Shallow, but quick. Clint had his dagger out before a word was said. Natalia's voice was a whipcrack: "Show yourself."

Nothing; another second passed. And then, slowly—so slowly a breath caught in every throat—a pair of pale fingers curled around the edge of a crate. A figure shifted into view. Disheveled, thin, with wild dark hair and eyes like twin storms.

A girl. Young. Mute. Watching. Natalia didn’t move. Her voice dropped to something colder than the sea.

“Well. What do we have here?”

Wanda didn’t move, but her eyes roamed. Not in fear. She was sizing them up—measuring escape routes, the weight of the men around her, maybe the wind on the deck above. Clint noticed it. Natalia noticed it more.

“Did I stutter?” Natalia said.

Still silence. Then the girl stood. Slowly. Deliberately. She stepped out into the open. Barefoot. Dirt on her hem, blood on her ankle, and one hand clutching the tattered hem of what might’ve once been a fine dress. Now, it looked like she’d crawled through a grave.

Sam exhaled sharply. “She’s just a girl.”

"Girls have knives," Clint muttered.

“And lies,” added Tony. “Don’t forget those.”

“She’s been here at least two nights,” Clint said. “Maybe more. Ate our food, pissed in our corners, and didn’t slit a single throat while she did it. That’s some skill.”

A voice came from behind them, low and sour. “Skill ain’t the only thing she’s got.”

Crossbones—real name Brock Rumlow—stepped forward, grinning like a shark with missing teeth. One eye clouded, a blade tucked into his boot, he was exactly the kind of pirate mothers warned their children about. He gave Wanda a slow, deliberate look.

“Ship’s been lacking in certain… comforts,” he said, loud enough for others to hear. “Wouldn’t be the first pretty stowaway we put to use. Might not be bad to have a proper whore aboard.”

Wanda stiffened, her lips twitching into something sharp, defensive. But she didn’t speak. There was a beat of silence. Then Natalia moved. No one saw her draw—just that her blade was suddenly at Rumlow’s throat. Not pressing. Just there.

“No one touches her.”

Crossbones smirked, though his Adam’s apple bobbed once. “So she’s yours now, is she?”

Natalia didn’t blink. “She’s not yours.”

The crew stirred, uncomfortable. A couple chuckled. One spat over the rail. Sam folded his arms, watching, neutral. Clint kept his hand on his knife.

“She’s cargo,” Crossbones said. “A stowaway. Hell, she might fetch a coin or two at port. High-bred thing like her? Looks like she was meant for velvet sheets and rich men’s hands.”

Wanda's jaw tensed. Her voice, when it came, was low and hoarse—barely a whisper, but it shut the deck up colder than any blade.

“I was sold,” she said. “To a house in Bayonne. For their pleasure. To keep my family fed.”

Every face turned to her.

“I ran,” she added. “I’d rather die at sea than bleed in a brothel.”

The silence that followed was ugly. Then came the noise.

Half the crew started shouting at once. Some outraged, some amused. A few voices—louder, greedier—agreed with Rumlow. Others argued. One demanded to toss her overboard. Another suggested binding her and locking her below. Tony proposed using her as bait if they wanted to rob a passing noble ship. Sam reminded them they weren’t slavers. That only pissed off more. Natalia stood still through all of it. One hand on her belt, eyes fixed on Wanda, who hadn’t moved since she spoke.

Finally, she raised a hand.

Quiet fell like an anchor.

“She stays,” Natalia said flatly. “Until I decide otherwise.”

Rumlow barked a laugh. “And where does she sleep? With you?”

Natalia didn’t smile.

“Clint,” she said. “Escort the girl to my quarters.”

Clint looked surprised. So did the rest of the crew. But he didn’t argue.

Wanda stepped forward, shoulders squared despite her limp. She didn’t flinch as she passed Rumlow, though he muttered something crude under his breath. Clint glared him down as they walked past. Natalia remained on deck. She didn’t watch Wanda go. She didn’t have to. The girl would be upstairs, in her quarters, where she could keep an eye on her. Where no one else could get close. She turned to face her crew.

“Anyone lays a finger on her,” she said, voice low and steel-hard, “answers to me.”

There was no challenge after that. Not yet.

Chapter Text

Natalia’s quarters were not what Wanda expected.

There was no velvet, no grandeur—no trophies from conquered ships or stolen finery. Just a narrow bunk nailed to the wall, a table cluttered with maps, a rack of weapons that gleamed even in the low light, and a single bottle of rum resting half-finished beside a chipped tin cup.

It smelled of salt and gunpowder, leather oil and ink.

Clint shut the door behind Wanda and left without a word.

She stood by the wall, her arms crossed tightly in front of her chest, eyes flicking from the compass on the desk to the worn coat hanging by the window.

Natalia didn’t offer a seat.

Instead, she leaned against the table and lit a small oil lamp, casting flickering gold across the room. She looked at Wanda the way a wolf watches something too strange to eat and too interesting to ignore.

“You know,” she said, “if I hadn’t pulled rank out there, half that crew would’ve dragged you below for a laugh.”

Wanda didn’t respond.

Natalia rolled her neck, slow. “But you knew that, didn’t you, sweetheart?”

“I suspected,” Wanda said, voice soft but precise. Her accent was faintly foreign. Refined. “I’ve met men like them before.”

Natalia let out a humorless laugh. “Haven’t we all.”

There was silence for a moment—stretched thin as rigging wire.

“You gonna tell me how the fuck you got on my ship?” Natalia asked, voice low and dangerous.

Wanda didn’t answer right away. When she did, she spoke like every word had been polished first.

“I climbed aboard at Port Les Rêves. Slipped in under the dock netting while your crew was drinking themselves blind.”

Natalia snorted. “Clever. Reckless, but clever. Not the first idiot to sneak on board. Usually they piss themselves before they make it to breakfast.”

Wanda lifted her chin. “I didn’t come here to steal. I just needed passage.”

“Passage to where?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Natalia narrowed her eyes. “That’s not the kind of answer that buys you safety.”

“I’m aware,” Wanda said quietly.

The two women stared at each other—different as fire and ice, but equally unflinching.

Natalia stepped closer, boots echoing on the wooden floor.

“You’re not safe without me,” she said. “You understand that, right?”

Wanda didn’t flinch. “Are you threatening me?”

“No,” Natalia growled. “I’m stating a fucking fact.”

She reached for the bottle, took a slow swig, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“You’re on my ship. You don’t know the rules, the waters, or the wolves wearing sailor’s boots. I tell you to thread carefully, you best believe it’s not for my sake.”

Wanda hesitated, then asked, “How old do you think I am?”

Natalia paused, one brow arching. “Don’t care to guess. You look like a girl who’s seen too much, which could make you fifteen or thirty. Either way, the sea doesn’t give a fuck.”

“I’m nineteen,” Wanda said. “And I didn’t choose to see what I’ve seen.”

Natalia met her eyes—something hard there, but not unkind.

“Neither did I.”

Silence again.

Wanda looked down. “I didn’t think I’d be caught.”

Natalia laughed, short and sharp. “No one does. Running’s always a fool’s gamble. Only reason to do it is if staying’s worse.”

That hung in the air like smoke.

Wanda looked up again, her voice barely a breath: “Was it?”

Natalia didn’t answer right away. She walked to the window, staring out into the starless night.

“I ran from a man who called himself captain. Put a knife in his gut and took his ship. That’s what it cost to stop being prey.”

Wanda swallowed. “And now?”

“Now I do what I fucking want.”

There was something broken in the way she said it. Something proud, too.

Natalia turned back, expression unreadable.

“You sleep here tonight. I don’t trust you. But I trust the rest of this crew even less.”

Wanda gave a cautious nod.

“I won’t touch anything.”

Natalia rolled her eyes. “I don’t give a shit what you touch, long as it’s not my maps or my rum.”

Just then—a knock. Sharp. Three raps, impatient. Natalia’s expression hardened. She motioned Wanda back, toward the corner.

“Stay quiet,” she muttered. “Let’s see which bastard thinks they’ve got the balls to knock on my door at this hour.”

Wanda obeyed, slipping into the shadowed edge of the room. Natalia stepped toward the door, hand already at her pistol.

And then, softly—another knock, but this time… it was slower.

Measured. And it wasn’t a crewman’s knuckles. It was something else entirely.

The knock came again—this time followed by a familiar voice.

“It’s me. Don’t shoot.”

Natalia opened the door just enough to show Clint’s face, framed in moonlight and holding a battered tray of food.

“Thought the girl might need something other than old bread and threats,” he said, pushing past her with the tray. “And I figured you hadn’t eaten either.”

She arched a brow. “Getting soft?”

“I’m getting sick of hearing your stomach growl through the goddamn floorboards.”

He set the tray down on her desk: two bowls of salted fish stew, a heel of bread, and a shared tin cup of water. Wanda stepped carefully out from the shadows, her eyes flicking between them.

Clint gave her a quick once-over. Not cruel. Just calculating.

“She speak yet?” he asked.

“More than most of the crew,” Natalia said. “And with fewer lies.”

Clint made a low sound of amusement, then turned to Wanda. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll be sailing past Blackharbor.”

Wanda blinked. “A port?”

“A pisshole of one,” Natalia muttered.

Clint shrugged. “Still. We can offload her there. Let her find her way, if she’s got one.”

There was no softness in his tone, but it wasn’t cruel either. Just… efficient.

Wanda lowered her gaze, murmuring, “I don’t have coin.”

“Neither does half the crew,” Clint said.

“I don’t have a name that’ll keep me safe.”

Natalia watched her for a beat. Then she said, “Don’t worry. They don’t care about names in Blackharbor. Just flesh and silver.”

That earned a sharp look from Clint.

“Not helping,” he muttered.

Natalia ignored him. “If she’s lucky, she’ll vanish into the crowd. If she’s not, well… at least she won’t be our problem anymore.”

Wanda didn’t speak. But her fingers had curled tightly into the fabric of her sleeve. She was staring at the bowl of stew like it had insulted her.

“Eat,” Clint said, nudging the tray gently. “It’s not poisoned. Though I wouldn’t blame Nat if she tried.”

Natalia gave him a look that was all knives. Wanda picked up the spoon—but then paused. The oil lamp on the table flickered. Once. Then again.

There was no wind. No one had moved. Just a quick pulse of flame, like a heartbeat.

Clint frowned, glancing at it. “You see that?”

Natalia didn’t answer; Wanda looked away quickly, as if embarrassed. “It’s nothing.”

Natalia’s gaze narrowed. “Yeah. That’s what everyone says right before it turns into something.”

But she didn’t press and Clint cleared his throat. “I’ll be back before we make port. Sunrise. You’ll want to be ready.”

He nodded at Wanda, then turned and left, shutting the door behind him. Wanda finally lifted the spoon, took a slow bite. Her fingers shook just barely.

Natalia didn’t miss it. She sat across from her, propping her boots on the edge of the table, her gaze still sharp.

“You’re hiding something,” she said quietly.

Wanda met her eyes. “Aren’t we all?”

Natalia smirked. Just faintly. And said nothing more.

Outside, the sea rolled like a lullaby. Inside, the lamp steadied. The flame held. But only for now.

The ship creaked and groaned as the night wore on, waves slapping rhythmically against the hull like a lullaby for the damned. Above deck, the crew shifted in their hammocks, snores rising like the wheezing breath of a tired beast. Below, The Widow’s Kiss kept cutting forward, uncaring and constant.

In the captain’s quarters, the oil lamp had burned low.

Natalia Romanova kicked off her boots with the grunt of someone who’d spent half her life sleeping on wood and splinters. Her coat hit the back of the chair, her belt clattered onto the desk—flintlock, knife, and a silver coin all tangled in its leather.

She didn’t even look at Wanda as she dropped onto the narrow bed and sprawled back across it, one arm slung over her eyes.

The stink of rum clung to her like a second skin—sharp, sour, and alive. She hadn’t drunk more than usual, but the bottle was nearly empty.

Wanda stood awkwardly near the table, uncertain. Her arms folded across her stomach, hands buried in the loose sleeves of the old tunic Clint had tossed at her earlier—far too big, likely Sam’s. Her hair was still damp from when she’d washed at the basin.

“You can sleep in the crew deck,” Natalia said suddenly, her voice slurred but not soft. “They’ll squeeze in. Room between two of ‘em. You want that, go.”

Wanda hesitated.

“You said—” she started.

“I said I’d keep them off you,” Natalia muttered. “Not that I’d keep you here. You’ve got a choice. Don’t say I never gave you one.”

Wanda stood there for a long moment, the dim flame painting shadows across her face. She knew what the crew was like. She’d seen how they looked at her. Rumlow. A few others. Not all of them, but enough.

“I’ll stay,” she said quietly.

Natalia made a noise—half grunt, half laugh. “Suit yourself.”

She didn’t move over.

Wanda approached the bed with cautious steps, like a bird testing a snare. She perched on the very edge, careful not to touch the captain’s blankets more than necessary. The frame groaned slightly under the new weight.

Natalia cracked one eye open and glanced sideways.

“You gonna fall off like that.”

“I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself,” Natalia said again, already rolling to face the wall, back toward her.

For a while, there was only the sound of the sea and the distant thrum of the crew below.

Wanda lay tense, barely breathing. Her legs curled up, one hand clutching the corner of the blanket like it might anchor her.

“You stink of rum,” she muttered under her breath.

From the other side of the bed: “Better than stink of fear.”

Wanda turned her face to the ceiling.

After a while, Natalia spoke again, low and rough, almost like a confession.

“If you run again, I won’t come looking.”

“I know.”

“But if you stay…” Her voice trailed off, then: “Just don’t be fucking stupid.”

“I’m not,” Wanda whispered.

Natalia said nothing more. Wanda lay still, eyes wide in the dark. She didn’t sleep. Not yet. But for the first time in weeks—maybe longer—she didn’t feel hunted. Not safe, no. But not prey, either.

Chapter Text

The morning came with the sound of gulls and groaning wood. Natalia woke like a blade sliding free of its sheath — slow, inevitable, and already dangerous. One eye cracked open to the grey light spilling in through the salt-stained glass of her cabin window.

She stretched with a quiet grunt, arm draped over her brow, then turned her head. Wanda was still curled on the edge of the bed, stiff as a corpse. Her eyes were open, red-rimmed. She hadn’t slept.

“Still breathing?” Natalia rasped.

Wanda didn’t answer.

Natalia sat up, ran a hand through her tangled hair, and reached for a clean shirt slung over the back of a chair. She caught Wanda still watching her, suspicious, guarded.

“Easy,” Natalia muttered. “If I’d wanted to gut you in your sleep, pet, I’d have done it before the sun came up.”

“I’m not your pet,” Wanda replied stiffly.

Natalia grinned. “No. Not yet.”

Wanda looked away, disgust flickering faintly across her face.

“Got something better to wear,” Natalia said, getting to her feet. She pulled open a small chest at the foot of her bed and tossed a faded bundle of linen and leather toward Wanda. “Don’t whine. That shirt’s cleaner than half the men who’ve worn it.”

Wanda unfolded the clothes — a tunic, breeches, and a vest that smelled faintly of sea and sweat. Everything was too large, sleeves hanging well past her wrists, the shoulders loose. She held the tunic up, glancing between it and Natalia.

The captain was taller, built heavier in the shoulders and thighs, muscular without apology. She looked like she’d been carved from rope and weathered wood — not delicate, but undeniably female.

“You’ll drown in those sleeves,” Natalia said with a smirk.

“You’re built like a bull,” Wanda muttered.

“Bull’s got balls. I’ve got better aim,” Natalia shot back, then pulled the hem of her nightshirt up and over her head without hesitation.

Wanda turned, but not fast enough.

She caught the glimpse — Natalia’s bare back scarred like a battlefield, muscles carved from years of blood and salt. Her breasts were full, sun-kissed, and bare, each nipple pierced with small silver rings that caught the morning light. Just below her ribs, a wide, wicked scar ran diagonally across her belly — like something had tried to open her and failed.

“Saints,” Wanda whispered, half in shock, half in revulsion.

Natalia chuckled.

“You stare like you’ve never seen a woman’s tits before.”

“I’ve seen decency before.”

“Then you’ve clearly lived a dull fucking life.”

Wanda turned away sharply, cheeks burning. Natalia dressed slowly, clearly unbothered. She pulled on trousers, belted her waist, threw on a crimson coat she’d left hanging by the door. Her pistol slid into its place like a lover’s arm.

“You always walk around half-naked in front of strangers?” Wanda asked tightly.

“Only the ones I don’t fear.”

Wanda gave her a look, eyes narrowed. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Natalia paused mid-button. “You should be.”

The air settled into something different: less sharp, less cutting. Like both women realized they’d pushed up against the edge of something but hadn’t stepped over it — yet.

Natalia grabbed a thick leather strap from the wall and began tying back her hair. Wanda struggled with the vest’s buckles, muttering under her breath.

“Here.” Natalia reached for her, then stopped. “Do I have your permission to touch you, Princess?”

Wanda looked up, startled. She saw no mockery in Natalia’s eyes — only something wry and vaguely amused. Maybe respectful. In her own twisted way.

“…Fine,” Wanda muttered. Natalia stepped behind her and cinched the leather tight around her waist, fingers fast, efficient. Close.

“You don’t have to talk like that,” Wanda said quietly.

“Like what?”

“Like everything’s a threat or a fuck.”

Natalia laughed. “That’s pirate talk, sweetheart.”

“It’s ugly.”

Natalia leaned in close enough for Wanda to feel her breath against her ear. “And ugly keeps you alive.”

They stayed like that for a beat too long. Then Natalia stepped back, sliding her coat on, and moved to the table. Outside, footsteps clanged on the deck — morning orders being barked, rope pulled, barrels rolled into place. Wanda rubbed her wrists, still feeling the ghost of those fingers at her waist.

“What will you do with me?” she asked suddenly.

Natalia didn’t look up. She was checking her pistol.

“I haven’t decided your use yet, pet.”

And with that, she opened the door and strode out into the light, coat flaring like a crimson flag behind her.

Wanda stood in the cabin, alone, her heart tight and her hands trembling. She was no longer sure who the real danger was. The sea; The port, Or the woman who’d just called her “pet” like it might one day mean belonging.

Blackharbor stank of fish, piss, and coin. It sprawled across the craggy edge of the sea like a rotten tooth—ramshackle docks, leaning buildings bristling with makeshift sails and rusted lanterns, and crooked alleyways where screams went in but didn’t come out.

The Widow’s Kiss docked like a beast in heat, slamming hard against the pier, ropes lashed quickly by crew who were already eyeing the brothels and taverns with hunger.

Wanda stood just behind Natalia, hood drawn low, boots too big, still stiff in her borrowed clothes. She watched the chaos from the gangplank, unsure if it was safer to stay close to the devil she knew—or run and hope the rest were too drunk to follow.

The air was thick with spice and rot. People shouted in three languages, smoke and perfume curled in the heat. At least two bodies floated belly-up in the shallows, ignored by everyone.

“Stay close,” Natalia said, low and sharp. She didn’t look at Wanda, but her hand rested near the hilt of her blade. Wanda nodded.

They made their way into the market first—Natalia negotiating with a trader over a crate of gunpowder, spitting on the price, threatening to burn his shop down, laughing when he backed down.

Wanda wandered only a few feet, drawn to a booth draped in fabrics and polished brass rings. It looked safe. Harmless.

It wasn’t.

A man appeared beside her—bloated with drink, sweat darkening his shirt. He smelled like meat left too long in the sun.

“Pretty thing,” he slurred, reaching out to finger the collar of her tunic. “You from the Widow?”

Wanda flinched back. “Don’t touch me.”

His hand came anyway. Then a second joined it, stronger. Another man—lean, meaner. “You for sale then? Captain keeps a stock now, does she?”

“She’ll fetch a fine silver,” the bloated one said. “I’ll pay full for the first go.”

Wanda backed up, heart slamming, breath quickening. She turned to call for Natalia—but another hand grabbed her arm.

That was a mistake. A terrible one. A blur of crimson tore through the air.

Natalia’s sword caught the bloated man just under the ribs, slicing up through meat and bone. Blood sprayed across the brass rings. He crumpled without a sound, eyes already glass.

The second man spun toward her, hand going for a dagger. He didn’t get the chance. Natalia fired point-blank into his throat.

The sound shattered the market’s rhythm. The man fell backward, gurgling, neck split wide like a cracked pipe. The crowd scattered like crows.

Wanda stood frozen, splashed in blood not her own. Her lips parted but no sound came out. Natalia lowered her smoking pistol, eyes on the corpses like they were trash to be swept away.

Silence.

“Next fucker who thinks to buy what’s mine—come forward. I’ll save you the trouble of rotting slowly.”

People shrank back. Eyes dropped. No one dared move. Natalia turned to Wanda. “You good?”

Wanda stared at the body closest to her—the one with blood still leaking from his mouth. Her chest heaved. She nodded, but only just.

“First time?” Natalia asked, voice lower now. Almost gentle.

Wanda didn’t answer. Her mouth moved, but her hands were shaking too hard to lie. Natalia reached forward, brushed blood off her cheek with the back of one calloused finger.

“Don’t worry,” she murmured. “Gets easier.”

Wanda jerked away. “I don’t want it to get easier.”

Natalia’s face hardened. “Then don’t survive.”

A moment passed. Then the crowd returned to motion, bodies parting around the dead like they weren’t there. Natalia holstered her gun.

“You’re not built for ports like this, pet,” she muttered. “Stay by me, or next time I won’t be close enough.”

Wanda looked up, finally meeting her eyes. “You didn’t have to kill them.”

“I did,” Natalia said. “That’s the point.”

They moved on—leaving blood, brass, and death behind them—but something followed still; Wanda’s first real understanding that Natalia didn’t just protect her. She claimed her. And she’d kill to prove it.

Once inside, the shop smelled of leather, oil, and warm dust. It was tucked between two brothels and a stable full of coughing mules, barely marked but clearly known. Natalia ducked her head to enter, the door creaking behind her as she shoved Wanda ahead.

Inside, it was all narrow aisles and high shelves—racks of boots and belts, faded corsets strung next to bandoliers, long coats hung like empty skins. A tall woman sat behind the counter smoking a pipe, her shirt half open and tattoos licking up her chest.

“Romanova,” the woman drawled. “Don’t tell me one of your crew finally grew tits.”

“None worth mentioning,” Natalia smirked. “Need clothes for the witchling.”

Wanda froze. “I’m not—”

Natalia held up a hand. “Save it. You want to stop looking like a sack of laundry, or no?”

The shopkeep glanced Wanda up and down, then grunted and disappeared into the back, leaving the two women alone under the swinging oil-lamps.

Wanda’s voice was soft, distant. “You killed them.”

Natalia leaned against the counter, crossing her arms. “Aye.”

“I saw it.”

“You did.”

“They didn’t deserve to die.”

Natalia shrugged. “You didn’t deserve to be touched.”

Wanda didn’t speak after that. Her fingers twisted into the hem of the shirt she wore — too big, still crusted with a bit of blood near the sleeve.

The shopkeep returned, arms full of linen and leather: a white blouse with a low collar and cinched sleeves, a corseted vest, trousers fitted at the hip, and a long dark coat with silver buttons. There was even a crimson sash — not unlike Natalia’s own.

Wanda hesitated.

Natalia gave her a sidelong look. “Try ‘em.”

“I don’t want to be—”

“Pretty?” Natalia cut in. “Tough? Safe?”

Wanda scowled. “Dressed like you.”

That earned a laugh. “Then pick something else, pet. I’m not your bloody governess. But walking around looking like you escaped from a washing line won’t help you in this port.”

Wanda gave in, snatched the bundle, and retreated behind a hanging curtain with sharp movements. Natalia leaned her head back against the wall and listened to the soft rustle of clothes.

A minute later, Wanda emerged. The clothes fit—almost too well. The blouse brought out the narrow line of her neck, the coat hung elegantly from her shoulders, and the trousers made her look older, stronger.

Natalia gave a low whistle. “You look like someone who bites.”

“I am someone who bites.”

“Atta girl.”

Wanda flushed, frustrated that she liked the way the boots felt. Hated how powerful the coat made her stand. She turned her back. “Done looking?”

“No,” Natalia said, unapologetically.

A moment passed. Then: thunk. Natalia tossed something onto the counter.

A pistol. Smaller than her own — carved bone grip, finely maintained. A weapon of precision. Not for show. Wanda stared.

“Take it,” Natalia said.

“I’ve never—”

“Doesn’t matter. You will.”

Wanda stepped forward slowly, picked it up like it might burn her. It was heavier than she expected, the barrel cool in her palm. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Keep it hidden. Pull it when you have to. Don’t flinch.”

“And if I miss?”

Natalia looked her dead in the eye. “Then I’ll finish it for you.”

Silence. Then Wanda nodded — slow, solemn — and slipped the gun into her coat. Outside, the wind was picking up. The sun lowering toward the edge of the sea. Natalia stepped past her and held the door.

“Come on,” she said.

“Where now?”

“Tavern. I need a drink, and you need to learn how to be stared at without breaking.”

Wanda hesitated. “And if someone else tries to buy me?”

Natalia gave a grin that didn’t reach her eyes. “Let them try.”

The tavern was alive with sin. Bodies spilled over each other like waves, sweat mixing with the sour scent of ale and perfume. Oil-lamps burned low, casting long shadows across sticky floors and peeling walls. A fiddler played sharp and fast, and laughter rose like smoke.

Wanda hovered near the bar, a tankard untouched in front of her. She’d sipped once. It burned like firewood and bile. She didn’t touch it again.

Across the room, Natalia was being devoured.

Three whores had found her — two women, one more ambiguous — draped over her like garlands on a statue. The captain sat back in a chair far too small for her, one boot on the table, drink in hand, letting them run their hands across her like they had rights.

Wanda couldn’t look away.

One kissed Natalia’s throat, trailing fingers along her collarbone. Another slid behind her, kneading her breasts with both hands, bold and greedy. The third dropped between Natalia’s legs, head lowering, mouth grazing the space just above her open trousers—

Natalia’s hand shot out, firm on the woman’s chin.

“Enough,” she muttered. Her voice was hoarse from rum and too many nights like this.

The girl blinked up at her, lips swollen. “You said—”

“I said try again when I come back with more gold. And less ghosts.” The words hung thick in the air. The girls backed off, half-laughing, half-insulted.

Wanda watched it all—heat rising to her ears, throat tight. She felt it in her chest first, the way she always did when it started: a slow pressure, like something coiling. Her palms ached. Her breath came short.

She clenched her fists beneath the table. She was fine. She was not jealous. She was not breaking.

But her tankard rattled faintly on the wood without being touched. Natalia noticed. From across the room, she raised a brow.

You alright? her eyes seemed to ask.

Wanda looked away. The air felt thinner. The lamps flickered once — no wind. She swallowed it down, buried it. As she always had.

Chapter Text

The Widow’s Kiss pushed off from Blackharbor with little fanfare. The crew returned rowdy and half-drunk, arms full of fresh fruit and ill-gotten coin. The ship rolled into open waters again by dusk — sails full, the sky bruising with oncoming rain.

Wanda hadn’t spoken since the tavern.

She stood alone at the railing, eyes on the waves. Her fingers curled tight over the wood, her knuckles pale. The wind tangled her hair. She barely felt it.

Behind her, boots creaked on the deck.

Natalia’s voice came low and slurred with fatigue. “You sulking or plotting, little witch?”

Wanda didn’t turn. “Neither.”

“Didn’t look like ‘neither’ last night.”

“I’m not like you,” Wanda said coldly.

“No one said you were.”

“I don’t drink until I can’t feel my name. I don’t let strangers put their mouths all over me for fun.”

Natalia snorted. “Then you’re missing out, darling.”

Wanda spun on her. “Is that what you think this is? A game? That I don’t see what you’re doing?”

Natalia folded her arms. Her expression was unreadable, but her jaw had tightened. “What I’m doing, pet, is keeping you alive. And warm. And fed. And very generously not throwing your mouthy ass back into port.”

“I didn’t ask for your generosity!”

“You didn’t ask for anything,” Natalia snapped. “You stowed away. You hid in my hold like a rat. Don’t pretend you’re some poor little lady now.”

“You don’t know anything about me!”

“I know enough. You’re soft. You’re scared. And you’re running from something that still smells like blood.”

That struck something deep. Wanda took a step forward. “At least I didn’t crawl inside a bottle to forget who I was.”

“And who are you, eh?” Natalia barked, her voice rising. “Some pampered girl with a hidden trick and a sob story? You think the sea will care if you’re sad? You think I care?”

Lightning flared somewhere far off. The wind picked up; Wanda’s breath was coming too fast. Her pulse was a drum in her ears. The world narrowed to salt and fury.

“I hate you,” she whispered.

“Then jump,” Natalia growled, close now. “If it hurts so bad to be here, then go on, jump.”

“I might.”

Natalia’s eyes flared. “You wouldn’t last a night.”

“You don’t know what I can survive.”

“No,” Natalia said, quieter now. “But I’ve seen what the sea takes.”

Another gust. A lurch of the ship beneath them. Then — Wanda slipped. One moment her boots were on wood, the next—air, nothing, cold rushing up. She fell overboard.

The sea swallowed her.

Cold like knives. Darkness pressing in like fists. Wanda didn’t even scream — her breath caught and vanished the moment she hit the waves. Down she went.

Salt filled her nose. Her limbs thrashed, but she didn’t know which way was up. Her skirts pulled her down, heavy and tangled. Her pulse roared in her ears. The panic cracked open something inside her.

She felt it before she saw it — a pressure, blooming behind her eyes, like fire building in a glass jar. Her hands lit with something red. Flickering. Frantic.

The water around her stirred, bubbles dragging upward in strange patterns, spirals and ripples that weren’t natural. A shape moved in the deep. A vibration, low and ancient, echoed across her bones.

The sea knew her. Or maybe feared her. And then — arms. Strong, sudden, yanking her hard by the coat. She surfaced in a gasp and a scream.

Natalia pulled her into the rowboat slung from the side of the ship. Rain had begun to fall, and the wind turned the sea angry. She grunted, lifting Wanda like she weighed nothing, both of them soaked and shivering.

Wanda collapsed into the boat’s floor, coughing up seawater, her hair plastered to her face.

Natalia stared at her — at her hands, still faintly glowing red. Wanda froze. Natalia’s voice was low, almost amused, but sharp-edged like a blade just drawn.

“Knew you were special, little witch.”

Wanda’s mouth opened. Closed.

“You’ve been crackling like flint since the moment we found you. And now? You go overboard and the ocean shivers?” She leaned in, bracing her forearm beside Wanda’s face, soaking wet and smirking like a wolf. “Now you won’t get to leave.”

Wanda tried to push herself up. “I didn’t ask—”

“Didn’t need to.” Natalia’s hand closed around her wrist — not cruel, but firm. “You’re mine now. My crew. My secret. My fucking problem.”

“I’m not yours.”

“You are,” Natalia said, brushing a wet curl from Wanda’s face, “until I decide I’m done with you.”

Wanda’s eyes flared. The glow came again — soft, uncontrolled.

Natalia laughed, low and delighted. “Don’t pout, pet. You’ve got fire. Let’s see if it burns.”

They bobbed in the rough sea, the ship looming above, sails snapping. Neither of them said another word.

The ship creaked and moaned beneath the weight of night. Rain still tapped the deck in soft rhythms, the storm passing slowly, like a beast reluctant to leave.

Below, in the captain’s quarters, it was near-silent — save for the occasional groan of wood and the low wheeze of breath from the bed. Wanda slept there. If you could call it sleep.

She was curled up in a tight knot, her coat soaked through and clinging to her skin. Her face was pale, lips slightly parted, fingers twitching now and then as if fighting something even in dreams. Her damp hair stuck to her forehead. She shivered with each gust of wind that slid through the cracks in the cabin.

Natalia sat in the chair across the room, elbows on her knees, a bottle of dark rum dangling from her fingers.

She hadn’t spoken since dragging the girl back on deck, hadn’t mocked, hadn’t flirted. She’d only lit the lantern and watched.

Now, she just stared at her. The little stowaway with trembling hands and strange fire behind her ribs.

“Knew you were special.” Gods, but she had.

She’d seen it in the girl’s posture from the start — too proud for a beggar, too guarded for a child. She was dangerous. It had clung to her like perfume. Natalia had smelled it even when Wanda had tried to shrink herself to nothing.

But that — that — what she’d seen in the water… that was something else. She took another sip, the burn familiar.

It would’ve been easier to leave her in Blackport. Drop her off in some alley behind a brothel and walk away. Some silk-skinned madam would’ve taken one look and named a price. High, no doubt. Too high. She’d have sold well. Beautiful girl, foreign tongue, red lips and sadness in her bones.

Drunk bastards would’ve lined up to ruin her. Natalia caught herself mid-thought — and her gut twisted.

She’d pictured it. Wanda, wide-eyed and shamed, lips bruised by hands that didn’t ask. She imagined her body, bent and owned. Broken. She exhaled sharply through her nose.

“You’re a bloody saint, Romanova.”

She stood, pacing the narrow space, fingers twitching at her belt like she wanted to draw a blade and cut her own mind open.

Wanda stirred, murmured something faint and unintelligible. Natalia looked back.

She wasn’t afraid of witches. Not really. She’d faced too many men with guns, too many beasts with sharpened teeth. But power like that — raw, aching, untrained — it didn’t play by rules. It bent things.

And still, somehow, the girl looked fragile. Soaked through, chilled to the bone, and stubborn enough to scowl at death.

Natalia walked over and knelt beside the bed, lowering the bottle to the floor. She reached out — slowly — and tugged off the wet coat, careful not to wake her. Wanda shifted, curled tighter. The captain frowned.

There was something… elegant about her even now. Her features soft in sleep. A line of red just beneath her cheekbone from where she’d landed on the deck. Full lips parted, brows still furrowed. She was always on the edge of war, even with herself.

“You’re a goddamn mess,” Natalia muttered.

She rose and crossed the room, digging through a chest. A blanket. Dry, scratchy wool. She tossed it over the girl and rubbed her own arms, suddenly too aware of the cold. She didn’t want this. She hadn’t planned for this.

Crew, she understood. Enemies, she could predict. Lovers, she discarded. But Wanda was none of those things. Not yet. And maybe not ever. Just a girl with fire in her veins and no place to call her own. And beautiful girl at that. Fuck.

She stared out the foggy porthole into the black water, her throat tight and her jaw clenched. The storm had passed, but something else had started.

And Natalia Romanova, the Widow Captain of the sea, didn’t know what to do with that. Not yet. But she knew this: she would not let the girl go. Not now. Not when the world would eat her alive.

The galley smelled of fish stew, scorched onions, and too much garlic. Natalia wrinkled her nose as she stepped in, ducking under a low beam. Her shoulders were still damp from the spray, her red hair tied up in a rough knot, her boots leaving wet prints on the floorboards.

Three of her crew sat at a wide table near the barrel-fire — Clint, Sam, and Crossbones. Dice scattered across the wood. Clint raised a brow as she approached, lips twitching into a half-smile.

“You look like you lost a fight with the sea.”

“I won,” she said flatly, grabbing a bowl from the shelf.

Sam offered a chunk of bread. “Heard the girl went over. That true?”

“She’s alive,” Natalia said, ladling stew into a tin bowl. “For now.”

“She sleepin’ in your bed again?” Rumlow cut in, voice oily.

Natalia didn’t answer. He leaned forward, grinning with too many teeth. “Funny, innit? The Widow, of all people, fetchin’ soup for a soaked stowaway. Must be somethin’ special ‘bout that one.”

Clint tensed.

“Shut up, Rumlow,” Sam said, low.

But Rumlow wasn’t done. His eyes glittered. “I mean, shit. Must be soft between the thighs, that one. Bet her little twat’s still warm from the water, eh, Cap’n? That what you want?”

The room went silent. Natalia didn’t move. Her back was to him. She placed the bowl down on the counter, calmly.

“Say that again,” she said.

No bite in her tone. Just ice.

Rumlow smirked. “C’mon now. You play like you’re above it, but every crew needs a warm thing to fuck. Might as well be her. You goin’ soft, Widow? You want her all to yourself? That it?”

Clint stood up halfway, eyes wide.

“No, no—” Clint started.

Too late. Natalia turned. Fast. Blade out.

Her dagger slammed into the table with a crack of wood and wet snap of bone — Rumlow’s left hand pinned. He screamed as she held his wrist down with one hand and sawed through the pinky finger with the other.

Blood hit the table in a sharp arc. “FUCK!” She tossed the finger into his lap. The others didn’t move.

Her voice was cold enough to freeze the fire. “Speak like that again, and I’ll take the rest.”

Rumlow writhed, cradling his hand, teeth gritted against the howl of pain.

“You forget yourself,” Natalia said, looming over him. “She’s under my protection. She’s mine. Not yours. Not theirs. You don’t speak about her again unless you’re asking how sharp my knife is.”

She wiped the blade on her coat and sheathed it. Calm again. Poised. Regal, even. She picked up the bowl of stew.

“Enjoy your meal, boys.” Then turned on her heel and left.

The storm had passed. But the cabin still smelled of it — sea-soaked wood, old rum, the iron tang of blood on Natalia’s sleeve.

Wanda stirred beneath the blanket. Her eyes fluttered open slowly, lashes damp, her body aching all the way to the bone. She didn’t remember when she’d passed out. Only the water. The cold. The way her fingers had burned in panic. And Natalia’s arms, pulling her free.

The captain stood at the desk now, back turned, cutting a hunk of bread with the same knife she always wore at her hip. The sleeves of her linen shirt were rolled up to the elbow. One cuff was soaked through with something darker than seawater. Wanda’s heart twisted.

“Was it him?” she asked softly.

Natalia didn’t look back. “Crossbones has less finger than he did an hour ago. That’s justice by sea.”

Wanda pulled the blanket tighter around herself. Her voice cracked. “You… you didn’t have to.”

Natalia turned, setting the tray down on the bedside table — a bowl of stew, still steaming, and a chunk of bread already split.

“I know,” she said. “I wanted to.”

Wanda looked up at her, searching her face for cruelty. For smugness. She didn’t find any. Only that careful neutrality — that wall Natalia always wore when things got too close to real.

“I…” Wanda hesitated, then sat up slowly, shoulders hunched. Her voice trembled. “Thank you. For pulling me out of the sea. For not letting them—” She swallowed. “Not handing me over. To them. To him.”

Natalia crouched beside the bed, resting her arms on her knees. Her voice was quieter now. “I saw it in you, little witch. From the first moment. Like something leaking through your skin. They would’ve torn you apart.”

“I didn’t mean to use it,” Wanda said. “I don’t even know how. It only happens when I’m scared. I try to keep it locked in, I try, but—”

“You ran because they found out.”

Wanda nodded, eyes shining. “They were going to sell me. Not just for what I looked like. For what I could do. They said the rich would pay anything to fuck a witch.” Her jaw trembled. “I just… I wanted to be free.”

Natalia studied her face. A long silence stretched between them.

“Freedom’s a story, pet. A beautiful lie,” the captain said at last. “But I can offer you something like it.”

Wanda frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I can keep you safe. On this ship. In my quarters. Under my watch. But you roam freely out there?” Natalia gestured behind her. “They’ll sniff you out. Use you. Maybe worse.”

Wanda looked down.

“I don’t trust half my crew,” Natalia admitted, voice edged with venom. “Most days, I don’t even trust a quarter. Rumlow’s hired too many mouths I didn’t pick myself. It’s rotting from the hull.”

A long pause. Wanda reached out — slowly — and touched Natalia’s wrist. Not for seduction. Not out of weakness. Just human contact. Which felt real and warm.

“Please,” Wanda whispered. “Don’t sell me. Don’t let them take me.”

Natalia looked at her — truly looked — and something in her expression cracked.

“I won’t,” she said, softer than Wanda had ever heard. “I’m not good. But I’m not that kind of monster.”

Wanda exhaled, shaking. She leaned forward, just a little, and laid her forehead against Natalia’s shoulder.

And for one moment, Natalia didn’t pull away. Didn’t mock. Didn’t flinch. She let the girl rest there — heart fluttering against her chest — and wrapped one rough arm around her back, holding her like something she couldn’t admit she wanted to keep.

Chapter Text

By the fourth dawn since the storm, the sea had settled into a slow, endless breathing. Gulls wheeled above The Widow’s Kiss, screeching over the sails as the ship glided across a glass-blue expanse.Below deck, the stink of brine, tar, and old rope clung to everything.

Wanda felt it under her fingernails. Natalia had ordered her out of the cabin that morning, eyes sharp, voice curt. “You want to be here? Then you work. You eat what you earn, witch or not.”

So Wanda stood now beside Sam at the rail, knotted ropes in her hands and salt drying on her cheeks. The morning wind nipped at her borrowed shirt — one of Natalia’s, still far too large — sleeves rolled and cinched with rough twine. She wore new pants too. Slim-fitting, worn from some old crewman’s trunk, patched at the thigh. And boots. Stiff leather, slightly too big. The pistol rested at her hip. Unloaded. For now.

“You tie a noose like someone who’s never had to hang a man,” Sam muttered beside her, amused.

“I haven’t,” Wanda said, gritting her teeth as she wrestled the knot again. “But I’ve been tied up before.”

He blinked at that, then gave a dry chuckle. “You’ll fit right in.”

She doubted it. Around them, the crew moved with idle purpose — scrubbing decks, hauling lines, arguing over dice. Clint clambered down from the rigging, sweat sticking his hair to his face, and offered Wanda a friendly nod. She tried to return it.

She felt the eyes, though. Always the eyes.

Some of them watching her like she was an animal in a cage. Some like they were weighing her value in gold or sweat or other things. Rumlow hadn’t looked at her since the finger incident. But Wanda could feel his heat when he passed — like an ember under her skin.

She kept near Sam when she could. And Clint. Even the large silent one — Steve, they called him — offered a kind of distance-respect. He didn’t speak much. But he nodded. And sometimes, that was enough. Still, no one forgot who she was. Or what she might be. Especially not herself.

She felt it sometimes — when her hands trembled and something beneath her skin shifted. When her blood felt like lightning instead of heat. It didn’t make her feel powerful. It made her feel like a knife that hadn’t chosen a hand yet.

By midday, she was helping scrub the deck with sea water and sand, shoulders aching, when a boot clomped down beside her.

Natalia. Backlit by sun, red hair tied tight, coat flapping in the breeze. She looked like she’d never even touched water — like storms bent around her.

“Eat,” she said simply, tossing a wrapped bundle at Wanda’s feet. “You’ve earned it.”

Wanda stared up, blinking. “You’re giving me lunch?”

“I’m letting you take it,” Natalia corrected. “There’s a difference.”

Wanda opened it — dried fish, some bread. A slice of orange that made her stomach cramp in hunger just looking at it.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

Natalia lingered, crouching beside her, scanning the deck.

“You’re safer now. A few of them respect pain. Respect me. But don’t get bold. One wrong smile, one soft look, and they’ll think you’re for sale.”

Wanda frowned. “I don’t smile.”

“Good. Keep it that way.”

Their eyes met. Natalia’s voice dropped. “Sam says you work quiet. That you listen more than you talk.”

“I don’t want to draw attention.”

“You can’t help it,” Natalia said, almost fond. “You shine without meaning to. That’s dangerous.”

“I didn’t ask to shine,” Wanda muttered.

“No one does.” She stood. “Finish your food. We dock in three days if the wind holds. We might be picking up more than just supplies.”

“More what?” Wanda asked.

Natalia just smiled. It wasn’t comforting. “More problems.”

And then she was gone — boots thudding up the steps to the helm, red coat snapping in the wind. Wanda stared after her. Then picked up the orange, and bit into it. It was bitter and sweet and stung the cut on her lip.

When the sun dipped lower, it was painting the sky in smears of rust and flame.

Wanda sat on a coil of rope near the foremast, her fingers sore from knot-work. Her palms were scraped raw, her nails blackened. The sea wind tugged at her shirt and hair, and every new creak of the ship made her stomach coil.

Someone was watching her. She didn’t know how she knew — not exactly. But the feeling had teeth. She turned her head slowly.

Across the deck, near the cannon stack, Rumlow leaned against a barrel, one boot propped, arms folded. His bandaged hand still looked raw, the fingers twitching now and then like they missed something to wrap around. His eyes never blinked.

Wanda stiffened. She forced herself to look away. If she met his gaze, she feared something in her might crack.

“Don’t flinch.” The voice came low, beside her. Steve. She hadn’t heard him approach — how did a man that size move so silently?

He knelt beside her, setting a leather pouch down between them. Inside: oiled cloth, a whetstone, and a short dagger with a bone handle.

“Yours?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Now it is.”

She looked up at him, confused. “Why are you giving me this?”

“Because next time he corners you, I won’t be there. And Natalia might not be either.”

Wanda looked back toward Rumlow. He was still watching. Still smiling like he knew how long it took meat to spoil in the sun.

“I won’t stab him,” she said quietly.

“Not unless you have to,” Steve agreed. “But it’s better to be judged than buried.”

Wanda’s fingers curled around the bone hilt.

Steve stood again. “They’re whispering about you.”

“I figured.”

“They think Natalia’s keeping you in her bed. That you’ve bewitched her.”

“I haven’t,” Wanda said, heat in her voice.

Steve shrugged. “They don’t care. Makes you a target either way. You understand?”

Wanda nodded. He started to walk off, then paused, glancing back once.

“There’s power in silence. But sometimes power means showing teeth, not just hiding them.”

And then he was gone, boots thudding across the deck. Wanda sat still for a long time, the dagger heavy in her lap. She didn’t notice Clint standing above until he dropped a waterskin into her hand.

“You alright, Little one?”

She gave him a weak nod. Clint jerked his head toward Rumlow. “He’s a bastard, but even bastards bleed.”

Wanda managed a small, tight smile. “Everyone bleeds.”

Clint’s voice softened. “You stay close to Steve or me if Nat ain’t around, yeah? Don’t prove anything. Don’t rise to it. You don’t owe this crew shit.”

Her voice was quieter. “But I’m still here.”

Clint tipped his head. “Aye. And you’re still you. That’s more than most can say after a week on this hell-floater.”

He turned and left her to the last light of the day. Wanda sat, with Rumlow’s gaze like a rusted nail in her spine. And a dagger in her lap.

Chapter Text

The port city rose out of the mist like a broken crown — Blackmire, they called it. Filthy, sprawling, bristling with smoke and spires. Its docks stretched like spider legs into the gray waters, already teeming with ships more rust than wood. The Widow’s Kiss docked at dusk, her sails groaning, her crew half-drunk and half-hungry.

Natalia watched the shoreline from the quarterdeck, arms crossed, jaw clenched tight around a cigar that burned low. Clint stood beside her, chewing a strip of dried beef.

“She’s been quiet,” he said without looking.

“Too quiet,” Natalia muttered. “Either she’s planning something or stewing.”

Clint raised a brow. “You worried?”

Natalia spat the cigar stub overboard. “I’m curious. That’s worse.”

Wanda stayed on the ship when most of the crew spilled ashore — taverns, whorehouses, fight-pits, and the usual trouble waiting for them. She remained in the captain’s quarters, arms wrapped around herself, watching the city through the slatted window.

She didn’t feel safe there. She didn’t feel safe anywhere.

But the thought of stepping into a city where she might be seen — recognized — chilled her to the bone. Steve found her later, offered her a carved bit of wood — a figure of a gull, smoothed at the wings.

“Something to hold,” he said simply, and left.

It was later that Clint came running. Not loud, not panicked. But fast. And fast meant something had gone to shit. Natalia looked up from her seat in the dockside tavern — The Seven Nails — where she’d been trading coin and sharp smiles with a spice-runner from Havana. Clint slid the paper across the table.

“Posted in the fish market,” he said, voice low. “Third stall. Didn’t think you’d want it sitting there too long.”

Natalia unfolded it slowly.

Black ink. Rough parchment.

A bounty.

Wanted: A girl, no older than twenty, brown hair, foreign tongue, marked with unnatural power. Said to cast hexes, cause blight and death where she steps. Dangerous. Unarmed or dead preferred. 500 gold sovereigns.

Her jaw flexed. The illustration was crude — but the resemblance was enough to matter. Natalia stood. The tavern fell quiet at the scrape of her chair.

“Where is she?” she asked.

“Still on the ship,” Clint said. “Didn’t go ashore.”

“Good.” She folded the parchment and slipped it into her coat. Then she turned and left without another word.

Wanda knew something had shifted the moment Natalia opened the door. The tension came in like a second shadow. The captain shut the door behind her, slow and deliberate.

“You didn’t go ashore,” she said flatly.

Wanda shook her head. “You told me not to.”

Natalia held up the parchment. “Then you didn’t see this.”

Wanda’s eyes widened. She took the paper, hands trembling. She didn’t need to read more than the first lines.

“It’s not me,” she whispered. “It—it could be anyone—”

“It could be,” Natalia cut in, stepping closer. “But it’s not.”

Wanda backed up. “I didn’t ask for this—”

“No, but you’re living it.”

Natalia’s voice was calm, but cold.

“This makes you a threat. And threats get people looking. Talking. Shooting.”

Wanda looked up at her, eyes brimming with something between fear and defiance. “What will you do?”

Natalia didn’t answer. Not right away. She took the paper from Wanda’s hands, folded it again, slower this time.

“I burned the others,” she said. “The ones posted around the square.”

Wanda blinked. “You… protected me.”

Natalia shrugged. “You belong to my ship. I don’t share my things.”

Wanda’s jaw clenched. “I’m not a thing.”

“No. But you’re still mine, pet. Until I say otherwise.”

The silence that followed was thick, buzzing with unspoken rage. With something else, too. Wanda turned away, walking toward the window. Her shoulders trembled. Her voice, when it came, was quiet. “They’ll come for me.”

“Then let them.”

Wanda spun back. “You’d risk your crew—”

“I’d risk you,” Natalia said. “To see what you really are.”

Wanda froze.

Natalia stepped closer. Not threatening. Not exactly. But close enough that Wanda could smell the sea salt in her coat, the ghost of rum and sweat. “Your powers… you keep them coiled. Caged. But the day someone grabs your throat again, I want to see if you burn the world or let it choke you.”

Wanda’s breath caught. “I don’t want to hurt people.”

“That’s noble. And stupid. You don’t always get a choice. Natalia reached out, and for the first time, touched Wanda’s wrist — lightly, fingers cool and calloused. “Learn to choose before someone chooses for you.”

That night, Natalia sat on deck, the bounty burned in a lantern’s flame beside her. Steve stood watch at the helm. Crossbones passed by once. Didn’t speak. Just looked. Long and slow. Natalia didn’t move. But her fingers stayed on the hilt of her blade.

And below deck, Wanda stared at the ceiling of the captain’s quarters, eyes wide, heart thudding. She wasn’t safe. But maybe… she was no longer prey.

The sky was blackening by the time Rumlow made his move. The Widow’s Kiss had left Blackmire behind, its lanterns dimmed, crew sluggish from the shore. All seemed as it should. But the rot had been spreading beneath the deck, behind glances and gritted teeth.

Rumlow stood near the helm, the parchment clenched in his good hand, sweat slick on his brow.

He didn’t bother knocking. Natalia looked up from her chart table as the door burst open, wood cracking against the wall.

“You lying whore,” Rumlow snarled.

Behind him were two of his men — Knox and Mercer — both with blades already drawn. Natalia’s eyes flicked to the paper in his hand.

“You’re late,” she said coolly. “That was posted days ago.”

Rumlow stalked forward, fury thick on his tongue. “She’s wanted — five hundred sovereigns. You’ve been harboring her like some highborn fuckdoll in your bed.”

“Careful,” Natalia warned, standing now. “You’re a foul man, Rumlow, but even you should know when your tongue’s gone too far.”

“She’s a goddamned witch, Nat. And now we’ve got half the navy and every bounty-bastard with a skiff sniffing our trail—”

“She’s under my protection.”

Rumlow scoffed. “She’s under your cunt, you mean.”

Silence cracked through the room. Natalia moved before the word fully settled. Her blade unsheathed with a shriek of steel and sliced across Rumlow’s cheek, blood spraying his leering teeth.

“Drop your blades,” she said to the others, voice low and venomous. Knox hesitated. Mercer didn’t.

It began. The clash of steel echoed down the stairwell and up the masts. Blades rang. Men shouted.

Steve was the first to hear it — sprinting down from the crow’s nest as if the ship itself had howled. He didn’t hesitate. He dove into the fray, knocking Mercer down, elbow cracking bone.

Clint, already limping from the shore leave, arrived moments later with his long-knife drawn, slashing through a man’s gut in one fluid swing.

Below deck, Wanda woke to screams and footsteps thundering above. She bolted upright, breath shallow, heart already screaming. She ran.

On the upper deck, it was chaos. Natalia and Rumlow fought like storms — brutal, merciless, two seasoned killers tearing through the limited space of the captain’s quarterdeck.

Natalia bled — a cut on her side, another on her shoulder — but Rumlow was slower, heavier. She could’ve outlasted him. Could’ve. If it were just him. But it wasn’t.

The blow came from behind — a belaying pin cracked against her temple, thrown with sailor’s aim by one of Rumlow’s dogs. Her body staggered. Her sword fell. Rumlow surged forward. And Natalia went down.

Steve saw her fall and roared.

His war cry split the sky. He barreled toward the traitors, swinging with all the fury of a storm, even as blood poured from a fresh wound in his side.

He reached her. Just barely. And then four blades plunged into him. Wanda screamed as she reached the stairs. Steve dropped to his knees. Then fell, face-first. Clint was beside her now, dragging her back, eyes wild. “We have to run—”

But more men swarmed from the shadows. One of them grabbed Clint by the arm, twisting his elbow backward with a wet pop. Clint howled and crumpled.

Wanda turned — ran — but hands caught her hair, yanked her backward hard enough to rip strands free from her scalp. She screamed.

Rumlow, blood down his face, stepped over Natalia’s unconscious body. “Bring the little witch up.”

They dragged her. Kicking. Screaming. Her nails split as she clawed at the deck.

They pulled her up onto the poopdeck — the highest point on the ship, overlooking the chaos below. Sails burned in patches. Bodies were already slumped near the mast.

Wanda trembled as they shoved her down to her knees. Rumlow loomed. “She’s the prize now,” he said to his men. “Five hundred gold. Maybe more if we sell her slow.”

The crew jeered. A few spat. A few just watched — uncertain. Wanda looked down at Natalia’s crumpled form on the main deck, red seeping into the wood around her head. Motionless.

Something inside her cracked. Her vision blurred — not with tears, but heat. Like fire under her skin.

“Say your prayers, witch,” someone whispered, laughing.

But Wanda didn’t hear them. She heard herself. She heard the part of her that had hidden, shrunken, begged. And it screamed.

The air was thick with smoke and sea salt. The cries of the dying faded into the hush of wind across the sailcloth — torn, half-burnt, and limp. Blood ran between the slats of the deck, pooling in the grooved wood. The Widow’s Kiss had gone quiet, save for the groaning of the injured and the laughter of mutineers.

Wanda knelt at the center of it.

Hands still gripped her shoulders. The bruises forming there would blacken by dawn — if she lived that long. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps, heart pounding against her ribs like a war drum.

From her knees, she looked over the deck — saw Steve’s body crumpled like discarded canvas, saw the unmoving slump of Clint nearby, blood soaking into his pants. A groan — wet and low — escaped from Natasha’s broken form near the mainmast, her red hair matted with blood.

Something rose in Wanda’s chest. It was not fear. It was clarity. Rumlow stood above her, gloating. His lip was split, his cheek sliced, and one eye swollen shut, but the glint of triumph still shone bright in the remaining one.

“You were right,” he sneered. “She’s something special.”

He crouched, grabbed her jaw between his rough fingers, forced her to look up at him. “But special gets you killed just the same.”

Behind him, Mercer laughed. “Let’s see her scream when she burns.”

Wanda’s fingers twitched. Mercer reached for her. And the world cracked.

It wasn’t fire — not at first. It wasn’t even light. It was force.

Invisible, pure, pressure — slamming from Wanda’s body in a sudden, violent pulse. Mercer was lifted off his feet, thrown backward like a ragdoll. His body hit the iron grate at the base of the mizzenmast. One of the rusted struts was bent and jagged.

Mercer landed hard. The spike went straight through his back. He didn’t scream — he gargled, then went still. expression snapped from smug to furious in a single breath.

“She’s a fucking demon!” he roared, drawing his blade. “Kill her now!”

But his men hesitated. She was still glowing. Faint — red threads curling from her fingertips like smoke, rising from her shoulders, her eyes. Crossbones raised his voice again, louder this time, slicing it through the silence.

“She’s too dangerous. We toss her, now.” He pointed to the plank. The crew hesitated, then obeyed. Wanda felt hands grip her again, this time harder. She didn’t resist. She didn’t need to. Because even as she was shoved forward, her feet echoing across the slick wood, her eyes scanned the chaos — and caught movement.

Clint was still alive. Barely. He crawled forward an inch, blood trailing behind. him like a shadow. Natasha stirred. Her fingers twitched. Tony — bound and beaten, was being dragged up from belowdecks, blood dried at the corner of his mouth. And Sam — his face battered — followed, arms tied.

Rumlow shoved Clint with his boot. “Over.”

“No!” Wanda lunged — but too slow.

They threw Clint first — his body limp as it crashed into the sea below. Then Sam. Then Tony. Then — Natasha. Wanda screamed, reaching forward, red magic surging up her arms like flame — but again, she was held back.

Rumlow stepped up to her, blade pressed under her chin. “Now you, witch.”

In the distance, past the shattered light of a dying sun, an island loomed — dark and shrouded, barely visible beyond the mists.

Rumlow sneered. “Maybe you’ll make it there before the sea eats you.”

He jabbed the tip of his sword harder into her throat. Wanda looked at the ocean. Then at him. She didn’t beg. She didn’t weep. She smiled. And then she jumped.

There was no sound beneath the surface.
Only pressure, darkness, and the thudding of her own heart.

Wanda sank like stone, limbs heavy, dress dragging her down into the cold clutch of the sea. The plank had vanished above, and the light from the sky—what little remained—was swallowed quickly by depth.

Her eyes stung. She blinked, the sting wasn’t salt alone. She had jumped. They had thrown them all. Clint. Natasha. Tony. Sam. Dead or dying. Or lost.

Her hands rose, trembling. She didn’t remember meaning to move them. Her fingers curled, then flared, as if something ancient were guiding them. Her power stirred—like it recognized the sea.

Then it answered. Threads of scarlet light unfurled from her chest, spilling outward, curling like kelp in a tide. It moved slowly at first—hesitant. Then fast.

Then everywhere. Wanda’s eyes flew open. Her lips parted, and she breathed—not air, but power. It flooded her lungs, her blood. It changed her.

She reached out, fingers spread in the water, and found them. Above. Floating. Sinking. No. She wouldn’t let it end like this. She flung her arms wide.

The magic poured from her, thick and living, like silk spun in fire. A cocoon of red shimmered through the water, wrapping around the broken bodies above her—gently—as if the ocean itself bowed to her command.

Tony’s limp form was lifted first, then Clint’s pale, bloody limbs. Sam’s body turned as the tendrils curled around his chest—and something beneath his skin responded. A shiver, a twist of possibility. His back arched. Sparks bloomed across his shoulder blades.

Wings. He’d never had wings. But the spell knew something he didn’t. Something buried in blood and fate and fire. Scarlet wings unfurled like shadows behind him.

Last, she found Natalia. She hovered deepest, her body almost still. Wanda reached toward her, every muscle shaking.

“Not you,” she whispered, voice breaking in bubbles. “Not you too.”

The magic coiled around the redhead’s chest. A weak beat flickered in Wanda’s mind. Still alive. She rose.

When they broke the surface, the world was quiet. The night sky shimmered, stars glowing like the scattered sparks of her power. Wanda stood—stood, atop the sea, barefoot and bright with energy, the tide bending beneath her like silk.

She weaved her fingers again, arms moving slowly, casting spirals of scarlet around the floating bodies. Each one rose, weightless, drawn forward—toward the island ahead, its silhouette dark and jagged like a secret. She guided them gently, walking on water like a ghost in red.

Sam stirred first. Clint groaned, then muttered something sharp and half-conscious. Tony barely moved. But Natalia… The captain was still. Wanda’s throat caught.

The island loomed closer. Rocks turned to sand. Trees swayed like watchers in the wind. She brought them to shore.

One by one, she lowered them onto the wet beach, letting the waves kiss their feet. She dropped to her knees beside Natalia. Placed a hand on her chest. And whispered, “Please.”

There was no command in her voice this time. No spell. Only truth. A moment passed. Then another. Then—a cough. A wet, rattling cough. Wanda gasped. Natalia’s eyes opened, unfocused. Wanda laughed—sharp, hoarse, and wet with relief.

“You’re not allowed to die,” she whispered. “I’m not done being angry with you.”

Natalia blinked once. “Loud for a drowned girl,” she rasped. Wanda smiled through tears. The magic crackled softly across her knuckles.

And in the distance, behind the horizon, the Widow’s Kiss sailed away—leaving behind its fury, its captainless decks, and the storm it had awakened.

Chapter Text

The dawn came slow.

The ocean was a mirror to the burning sky, waves lapping quietly at their makeshift camp. Sand clung to skin and clothes, salt-crusted and drying. Somewhere inland, birds sang sharp, alien calls, echoing through thick green.

Clint’s skin was pale and sweat-soaked.

Sam crouched beside him, pressing a clump of banana leaves tighter around the stab wound in his thigh. “You’ll live,” he muttered. “If you don’t die of stubbornness first.”

Clint chuckled weakly. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

He hissed through his teeth as Sam adjusted the binding. A thin sheen of blood still seeped from under the leaves.

“Stay still. You’ll tear it wider.”

“Can’t help it. You’ve got the hands of a butcher.”

Sam grinned. “You’re lucky I didn’t leave you for the fish.”

“I am the fish now,” Clint groaned. “You’re on fish duty, remember?”

Sam grunted and looked out to the water, eyes narrowing.

He could try. Sharpen a stick. Maybe trap something in the tidepools.

If they were here for long… they’d have to learn to survive like castaways.

Further inland, three figures moved cautiously beneath the humid canopy.

Wanda walked ahead, bare feet silent on the moss-strewn ground. Natalia trailed her with a hand at her side, palm often brushing the hilt of a stolen blade. Tony followed behind, muttering to himself and checking a half-broken compass he’d found in his coat pocket.

“North is broken,” he announced. “Or this island’s a goddamn ghost.”

Wanda paused at a tangle of vines and began pulling them aside.

“No birds inland,” she murmured. “They’re all on the coast. That usually means something’s off.”

“Or that the trees are cursed,” Tony added helpfully. “Like everything else in this nightmare.”

Natalia sighed, voice scratchy from saltwater and bruising. “You’re dramatic when you’re not bleeding.”

“I am bleeding.”

“Not enough.”

They kept moving.

They passed strange flowers—deep red like blood and hanging low. The path narrowed, and the heat grew heavier. Bugs buzzed. Sweat ran down their backs.

But then Wanda’s hand shot up.

“Listen.”

The others froze. A faint gurgle. A slow drip. The gentle, steady splash of moving water.

She broke into a run, limbs aching but sharp with purpose. Through brush and thorn, past roots thick as her arms—until she found it. A spring.

Cool, clear, and bubbling in a small natural basin of dark rock. Birds fluttered nearby. Lizards scattered as she approached.

Tony collapsed dramatically beside it. “I could marry this spring.”

Wanda knelt, dipped her hands into the water, and let the cold roll up her wrists. She drank. It tasted like rain and stone. Her heartbeat slowed.

Natalia stood over her, quiet. The trees hummed.

Wanda tilted her head back, neck glistening with sweat, and looked up at her.

“You keep staring.”

Natalia shrugged. “Waiting for your eyes to glow again.”

“They don’t glow.”

“They do. Like hot coals.”

Wanda huffed. “They only glow when you’re being an idiot.”

Tony snorted. “So, always, then.”

Natalia rolled her eyes but didn’t respond.

There was something in her gaze, though. Not suspicion. Not quite.

It was watchfulness.

“Why did you save us?” she asked suddenly.

Wanda’s hands paused in the water.

“I didn’t mean to,” she said. “It just… happened.”

Tony’s expression shifted. “That’s not comforting.”

Wanda stood slowly. “I didn’t know I could do any of it. Not like that.”

Natalia studied her. “But now you do.”

Wanda nodded. The forest was quiet again.

“Let’s fill what we can and get back,” Natalia said finally, breaking the tension. “Sam and Clint need the water more than we do.”

As they turned back, Wanda let her fingers trail along a twisted tree. It recoiled slightly. She blinked and stepped away. The island was watching. Or… something on it was.

Back on the beach, Sam had a crude fire started, smoke rising thin and gray into the sky. Fish sizzled on a flat stone, and Clint was dozing beside him, one hand limp over the dressing on his leg.

When the others returned, Sam tossed them a sharp look. “Any luck?”

“Water,” Natalia said, handing him a leaf-wrapped bundle. “Cold and clean.”

“And Wanda found it.”

Tony raised a brow. “She’s a damn homing pigeon for survival.”

Wanda smiled faintly, but her eyes were distant.

She still heard Mercer’s scream. Still felt Rumlow’s breath on her skin. Still saw Natalia lying pale and still in the water.

That night, when the fire died down and the stars began to bloom, Wanda lay curled beside Clint and Sam. Tony snored quietly near a crooked palm. Natalia sat watch, blade in hand.

Wanda’s eyes opened in the dark. She looked at Natalia, silhouetted against the firelight, calm and terrifying. And for the first time since the plank, Wanda wondered: What would happen when they got back to the sea?

The island was larger than they first thought.

It curved inland, thick with wild green, broken only by streams that spidered through the roots like veins. It took them half a day, but when Clint’s leg finally bore his weight, they found it—a clearing near freshwater, shaded by high palms and tall stone ridges. Fruit trees grew in wild tangles, and the stream curved into a shallow pool that shimmered in the sun. It was, by all appearances, survivable. So they built.

Not much—a few raised sleeping platforms from driftwood and vines, a pit for cooking, crude shelters tied together with sweat and bark and hope. The beginnings of an encampment. Not permanent. Just enough.

Enough to breathe.

That evening, the fire crackled low between them. Tony and Sam sat in the sand outside the camp’s edge, the surf just visible from where they crouched, their backs to the trees.

Neither spoke for a long while. Then Tony asked, “Do you think he suffered?”

Sam didn’t look at him. His eyes were locked on the waves. “Steve?”

Tony nodded. Sam exhaled. “He knew Rumlow would kill him the second he stood up.”

“He stood anyway.”

“That was Steve.”

Tony plucked at the edge of his shirt, eyes wet but hard. “If I’d—”

“Don’t,” Sam cut in quietly. “We all made it out because she snapped.”

They both turned to look toward the campfire, where Wanda sat alone.

Knees drawn up. Eyes closed. Fingers twitching faintly in her lap, glowing soft and red. Sam’s jaw flexed. “Whatever she is… we’re alive because of her.”

Tony didn’t respond. He only nodded and turned back to the sea. Wanda’s palms burned. Not with heat. With the ache of restraint.

She sat cross-legged, her back to a fallen tree, fingers twisting through the motions Natalia had called “witchy”—slow, fluid, dangerous. She wasn’t casting. Not really. She was trying to feel.

Trying to know the thing inside her. The way it surged when she was scared, or angry, or helpless. But now—now it was just… there. Like a second skin beneath her real one. Like breath.

A small spark crackled in her palm. She shut her fingers and killed it. Then tried again. Again. And again. She lost count.

Her mind kept flickering—to Mercer’s death, to Clint’s blood, to Natalia’s quiet voice after the fall.

“I knew you were special, little witch.”

She swallowed hard and looked toward the firelight.

Natalia sat with Clint now. Their shoulders almost touching. Clint was pale, stiff, but smiling at something she said. The muscles in Wanda’s jaw clenched.

She looked down again. A flame rose gently between her palms. Flickering red-gold. It cast shadows on her face. It made her look like someone else.

Inside one of the shelters, Natalia dipped a cloth into a bowl of cool water and wrung it out over Clint’s leg.

He hissed. “You’re not gentle.”

“You’re not quiet,” she snapped.

He smiled faintly. “Thanks for saving my life.”

Natalia leaned back against the wall. “You’re welcome. Don’t get used to it.”

They were quiet a long moment. The breeze rustled overhead, soft with salt and ash. Then Clint said, voice low, “You trust the witch?”

Natalia tilted her head. “No.”

“But you like her.”

Natalia didn’t answer. She stood up and walked to the opening in the shelter, watching the flickering glow from where Wanda still sat alone.

“She’s a spark in a powder keg,” Natalia murmured.

Clint followed her gaze. “So are you.”

That earned a half-smile.

“She wants freedom,” Natalia said.

Clint raised a brow. “And what do you want?”

Natalia didn’t answer. She turned away, but her eyes lingered on Wanda—lit by her own flame, like something caught between destruction and salvation. The heat crawled over the island like sweat.

The air was heavy with fruit rot and salt, and the sun hung low in the afternoon sky, slicing golden light across the tree trunks and leaves.

Wanda stood beneath a tall palm tree, her arms crossed and eyes narrowed. High above, a cluster of coconuts hung stubbornly—just out of reach, just enough to piss her off.

She had tried climbing. She had tried throwing stones. Now she was glaring, and muttering in Sokovian under her breath.

“Come down, you bastard fruit,” she snapped, palm raised. The red flickered from her fingers, curling faintly like smoke.

Behind her, unseen, Natalia stepped out from the brush with a lazy gait, arms folded, silently watching. She didn’t speak. Wanda took a breath. Focused.

She raised her hand, her brows furrowed, and whispered something under her breath. The red magic began to ripple again—more sure this time. It stretched up like fingers through the air, reaching for the coconuts. And for a moment—just a second—it worked.

The cluster trembled. A soft pop echoed from the stem. One fruit began to fall. But then—The glow spiked.

A crack of light burst upward from Wanda’s palm, violent and sharp. It slammed into the tree like a cannonball. The palm exploded. Bark splintered. Leaves shrieked as they tore free. A thunderous boom echoed into the jungle.

Wanda staggered back, arms shielding her face as the top half of the tree pitched over and landed in the dirt with a deafening crash.

When the dust cleared, she was on her knees, panting, her hands glowing and shaking. She didn’t notice the footsteps at first.

Didn’t realize someone had seen until a voice drawled behind her, smoky and low: “Bit much, don’t you think?”

Wanda twisted around, already defensive—but it was just Natalia. Leaning against another tree, one brow cocked, a single coconut rolling at her feet from the debris.

“I said down, not dead,” Wanda muttered, brushing hair from her face.

Natalia grinned. “Tree’s down. You’re not wrong.”

Wanda stood slowly, red still curling faintly from her fingers.

She expected judgement. Fear. A hand drifting toward a hidden blade. Instead, Natalia only nudged the coconut with her foot toward her. “You’ve got bite, little witch.”

“I wasn’t trying to do that.”

“I believe you.”

Wanda’s eyes searched her face. “You’re not scared?”

Natalia shrugged. “Scared? No. Concerned?” She stepped closer. “Definitely.”

Wanda’s chin lifted defensively. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“I didn’t ask to babysit a ticking cursebomb, but here we are.”

That got a reaction. Wanda turned away sharply, magic crackling louder in her hands.

“Careful,” Natalia warned, suddenly closer. “You’ll light your pretty dress on fire.”

“I’m not fragile.”

Natalia’s voice dropped. “Never said you were.”

A beat passed. Only the sound of leaves swaying above them, and the sharp, sweet scent of shattered fruit.

Wanda’s shoulders sagged, just slightly.

“I’m trying,” she said quietly. “To control it. But it’s loud.”

Natalia nodded. “I get that.”

“You do?”

“I grew up being told to be silent, too. Problem was, I had knives for hands and a temper like hell.”

Wanda turned toward her, curious despite herself.

Natalia smiled, slow and wry. “First time I lost control? Killed a man with a broken spoon. You learn not to blink after that.”

Wanda blinked. Then, slowly, the corners of her mouth tugged into something like a smile.

Natalia stepped close enough now that their shoulders nearly touched.

“Look,” she murmured. “Magic, murder, mutiny… all of it. You’ve got a storm in you. I’m just saying—aim it next time.”

Wanda tilted her head. “And if I aim it at you?”

Natalia grinned. “Then I’d say thank you for the warning.”

Their eyes held, too long. Then Wanda bent down, picked up the coconut, and held it out. “Want to crack it open?”

Natalia took it from her fingers, brushing them briefly. “Only if you promise not to crack me open next.”

“No promises.”

Natalia laughed. “There she is.”

They walked back toward the encampment together, a new kind of silence settling between them—not quite trust, not yet. But something else. Tension wrapped in potential. And behind them, the shattered tree smoldered in the sun.

Night draped the island like a heavy velvet curtain, the jungle sounds twisting and curling in the warm air.

The camp was quiet now, save for the faint crackle of a dying fire and the soft lapping of waves against the shore.

Wanda and Natalia sat side by side on a fallen log, the glow from the fire painting their faces in orange hues.

Their clothes were stained and torn—frayed edges, smudges of dirt and ash—testaments to days spent surviving, not thriving.

Natalia’s eyes were glassy, betraying the tremor in her hands as she nursed a small flask of rum. But this wasn’t the usual easy drunkenness. This was withdrawal. Wanda watched her, heart tightening.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Wanda said softly.

Nat let out a bitter laugh, one shoulder shaking. “No one ever said it’d be easy. Or pretty.”

Her head tilted, heavy and tired, then—before Wanda could stop her—fell gently onto Wanda’s shoulder.

The warmth of Natalia’s skin was sudden and grounding, and Wanda’s breath hitched. Careful not to move, Wanda shifted her hands and silently lifted the embers of the fire between her fingers.

Red-gold sparks danced and floated upward like tiny stars, weaving patterns in the night sky. She kept her eyes on the glow, afraid to meet Natalia’s. But she felt the weight on her shoulder relax, the subtle rise and fall of breath slow. A silent promise passed between them.

In this quiet moment, beneath a canopy of real stars and floating embers, they were no longer pirate and stowaway. They were just two lost souls, finding a flicker of warmth in the dark.

Chapter Text

Wanda stirred before the sun had risen. A quiet wind moved across the island, rustling through banana leaves and the curled fronds of jungle trees. Somewhere in the canopy, a bird cried out into the twilight hush. She blinked sleep from her eyes and froze.

Natalia was draped behind her like a shield—one arm tucked loosely around her waist, the other beneath her head. Their legs were tangled. Wanda’s cheek rested against the rough linen of Natalia’s shirt, her hair fanned across the older woman’s shoulder.

The scent of salt and skin filled the space between them. And—God—warmth. So much warmth. Wanda hadn’t felt warmth like that since before. Before her parents had looked at her like a thing. Before strange men had tried to measure her value in coin. Before power had curled beneath her ribs and turned her to ash from the inside out. She didn’t move. Not yet.

She listened. Natalia’s breathing was even. Calm. Her fingers twitched against Wanda’s stomach, as if still dreaming of blades and war. The camp was still. Clint and Sam slept near the firepit, its embers dim but not dead. Tony was curled awkwardly beneath a makeshift lean-to of palm branches, muttering occasionally in his sleep. No threats. Just peace. Wanda inhaled slowly. She let herself have the moment. Just one.

Then Natalia stirred. “Mm,” came the groggy, gravel-soft sound from her throat. “You move like a ghost, but you breathe like thunder.”

Wanda rolled her eyes, unable to suppress the smile. “You slept on me, not the other way around.”

“I shielded you.” Natalia’s voice was still half-asleep, amused. “You were shivering. And you do this thing in your sleep—like a soundless sob. Drives a woman mad.”

Wanda flushed but didn’t pull away. “You could’ve just thrown a blanket over me.”

“Didn’t have one,” Nat muttered. “So I threw myself.”

Another silence. More comfortable, now. Natalia sat up after a few more minutes, brushing sand from her side. Her shirt was wrinkled and half open, the thin scars on her ribs catching the light. Wanda’s eyes caught on a familiar stab-wound again—silvered over, but brutal. A lifetime ago. Probably more than one. Natalia noticed the stare and smirked. “I collect them. Like trophies.”

“Painful ones,” Wanda murmured.

“Only the good ones hurt.” Wanda didn’t know what to say to that, so she stood and stretched, the tension of the night before still curling in her spine. Natalia watched her carefully. “You lost control,” she said quietly. “With the tree.”

Wanda stiffened. “I know.”

“You weren’t scared of the magic. You were scared of you.” Wanda didn’t respond. Natalia rose, brushing her hands on her trousers. “Come on.”

“What?”

“Time to train, pet.”

Wanda narrowed her eyes. “Train?”

“You think you’ll survive on this island, on the sea, anywhere with half-wild power and a temper?” Wanda opened her mouth. Closed it. Natalia jerked her chin toward the dense edge of the jungle. “We’ll go where we won’t blow up Clint’s other leg. Or light Tony’s hair on fire.”

Wanda followed her wordlessly, her bare feet quiet on the sand. The jungle thickened for a few hundred paces before opening into a shaded clearing surrounded by trees and mossy stone. Light filtered down through leaves in gold shafts. Natalia stopped in the middle, turned, and crossed her arms. “Show me.”

Wanda blinked. “Show you what?”

“Start small. That ember trick from last night. Float something.” Wanda clenched her fists. “It doesn’t work like that. It’s not… simple.”

Natalia stepped forward, voice firm. “Then make it simple.”

A rush of frustration, of heat, rose in Wanda’s throat. “Do you think I want this?” she snapped. “I didn’t ask to be born wrong.”

Natalia didn’t flinch. “You weren’t born wrong. You were born dangerous. There’s a difference.”

Wanda stared at her, chest heaving. Her fingers were already red at the tips. “I’ve killed with this.”

“So have I,” Natalia said simply. Wanda’s breath caught. The captain stepped closer, her voice lowering. “But you don’t have to kill with it now. Not unless you want to.”

That stilled Wanda. Slowly, with trembling hands, she raised her palms. A flicker of red light sparked to life. Then another. Then more—until a dozen motes of scarlet hovered between them, spinning gently in the air. Fireflies made of raw power. Natalia didn’t step back. She stepped forward—into it. The light shimmered across her skin. And Wanda… smiled. Small. Fragile. But real.

By the time they returned to camp, the morning was in full bloom. Tony was yelling at Sam about fish, Clint was trying not to limp while pretending he wasn’t hurt, and someone had rigged up a pathetic sailcloth tent for shade.

In the days that followed, Wanda and Natalia moved differently now. Closer. Less guarded and as they passed under the broken palm fronds, Wanda let one final ember flick off her fingertip—just to see it dance. It obeyed. It began as a shimmer on the ocean. A glint of polished wood, sails like bleached bone, and the gliding cut of a ship cresting the horizon. Natalia’s sharp eyes caught it first—trained, instinctual. Pirate-born, seafarer-bred.

“Ship,” she muttered, spitting the word like it might taste different in her mouth. “Northwest.”

Wanda was beside her in seconds, squinting through a curtain of sun and salt mist. “Is it… ours?”

“No such thing anymore,” Clint muttered from the lean-to. His leg was bound tightly with banana leaves and old cloth, but he still looked pale.

Tony leaned over the crude map he’d etched into sand with a piece of driftwood. “That heading’s wrong for merchant or navy. Could be a scavenger. Or one of Rumlow’s.”

At that, the silence thickened. Wanda felt it. That creeping dread. She turned to Natalia. “What do we do?”

The captain didn’t answer at first. Her jaw worked, hand resting on the hilt of a knife that hadn’t left her belt since the mutiny. Finally: “We get seen.”

Wanda blinked. “What?”

“If they’re friendly, they’ll approach. If they’re not…” Natalia’s mouth quirked into something hard. “We prepare.”

Tony snorted. “Prepare with what? My sarcasm and Clint’s one-legged hop dance?”

“I’ve got a slingshot,” Sam offered, holding up a forked stick. Natalia ignored them all and turned to Wanda.

“Red,” she said, tone clipped. “Big and bright. Not fire—smoke, if you can. Less risk.”

Wanda’s hands curled at her sides. “You think I can do that?”

“I know you can.” There was no softness in the words. But there was belief. And something else. Trust. Earned or foolish, Wanda couldn’t tell—but it sat heavy on her ribs all the same. She stepped to the edge of the beach, wind tugging at her hair, feet sinking into damp sand. The ship was clearer now—sails creaking in the breeze, its shape still distant but unmistakable.

She inhaled. Recalled the fire in her blood. The embers she’d lifted. The palm tree she’d obliterated. And then she focused. Her fingers moved like memory, though she’d never been taught. The magic responded—hesitant at first, then eager. A flicker of red bloomed in her palm. She fed it. Guided it. Lifted her arms and let it rise. With a sound like a crackling whip, a spiraling streak of red shot into the air—splitting the bright blue sky in two.

It burst near the clouds in a bloom of fireless smoke, staining the air a deep, unnatural crimson. The others stared. Even Natalia’s brows rose a fraction. Wanda lowered her arms, chest heaving. Sweat clung to her neck, her hairline. The ship in the distance slowed. Changed heading. Turning toward them. Natalia’s mouth set into a grim line.

“They’ve seen us.” Tony muttered, “Let’s hope they’re the not murdering type of pirates.”

Natalia didn’t reply. She stepped toward Wanda, looked her up and down. “You burned clean,” she said finally.

Wanda blinked. “What?”

“That flare. It was clean. Controlled.” Natalia paused, then added gruffly, “Well done.”

Wanda felt a strange warmth bloom in her chest—something dangerously close to pride. “Thanks,” she whispered.

Natalia gave her shoulder a brief squeeze. “Now let’s hope you didn’t just kill us all with it.” The ship grew closer with each passing minute.

Black sails now visible, trimmed in faded gold. No flag. No name. Silent. Natalia stood like a statue on the sand, flanked by Wanda on her left and Clint (propped up by Sam) on her right. Tony held a rusted piece of metal like a sword, expression grim. Wanda spoke low. “Is it them?”

Natalia didn’t answer at first. Then, “Not Rumlow’s. Not yet. But they’re not friends. Not until I say they are.” “

“What if they ask for me?” Natalia turned her head, eyes sharp.

“Then they’ll learn what it means to cross a witch.” The word didn’t sting as it used to. It almost felt like armor now. The wind picked up. The ship’s hull cut through the waves. Closer. Closer still.

Wanda’s heart thundered in her ears, and as the ship approached the shore, sails flapping like wings of an iron bird, she stood straighter. She would not run again. The new ship was called The Leviathan, sleek and deadly-looking. Its hull was dark, fitted with iron bracing, and its crew stood at attention like wolves waiting to be let off their leash.

They anchored just offshore, and a single rowboat was sent. Natalia stood at the edge of the sand as it neared. Wanda beside her, tension riding her spine. The oars cut cleanly through the water, two figures inside—one broad, hulking man with long dark hair tucked under a tricorn hat, and the other, blonde and coiled like a spring. Natalia exhaled slow, a name falling from her lips like a curse and a prayer both.

“Yelena.”

The rowboat hit sand. Yelena jumped out first, boots splashing in the surf, and marched up the beach without hesitation. She grabbed Natalia into a rib-crushing embrace before Natalia could even blink, whispering into her shoulder: “You’re late, sestra.”

“I got held up,” Natalia said dryly, hugging her back a second longer than necessary. Bucky followed, slower. Dark coat, a pistol at his hip, and a haunted look in his eyes. He stopped several feet from the group, scanning them. Wanda felt his gaze linger on her, but not unkindly. She noticed the silver ring on his gloved hand, the fine blade at his side, the tension in his jaw. Natalia broke the moment.

“James.”

“Nat.” His voice was rough, frayed.

Tony stepped forward, covered in salt and soot. “Before we get into any grand reunions—Steve is dead.” The words dropped like cannonfire. Bucky didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Yelena’s mouth opened, shut again.

“What?”

“He fell,” Wanda said quietly. “We were attacked. The ship—there was a mutiny.”

Bucky turned to her then, slow. “How?”

Sam stepped forward, jaw clenched. “He got stabbed. Five times. I was the only one close enough to see it. Couldn’t stop it. We—he was tossed. We were all tossed.”

Clint nodded from where he sat against a tree, pale and worn. “Rumlow’s bastards took the ship.”

Silence. Yelena looked to Natalia. “You let Rumlow stay on your crew?”

“I didn’t let him,” Natalia growled. “He weaseled his way in. Took more than just the ship.”

Bucky had gone stiff, eyes far away. “I should’ve been there,” he muttered.

Tony snorted. “Yeah, well. We all should’ve. But we were busy trying not to drown.”

“No body?” Bucky asked. He was still staring at the sea now, jaw like stone.

“No,” Tony said. “Rumlow doesn’t leave graves. Just blood.”

Sam lowered his gaze. “He was bleeding out fast. Chest. Gut. He didn’t scream. Just looked at me… like he already knew.”

Wanda watched a storm move behind Bucky’s eyes. His hands clenched. The air around them felt tighter, more brittle.

“He loved you, you know,” Clint said, voice dry and blunt. “Probably died thinking of you.”

Bucky closed his eyes. For a long moment, no one spoke. Then Natalia said softly, “I’m sorry, James.”

Bucky’s voice cracked on the edge of silence. “He always believed you’d come back, Nat. Said you were the only one stubborn enough to survive anything.”

Yelena shifted beside him. “She dragged us through fire to get here.”

“We’re not done yet,” Natalia said. “Not until Rumlow’s head rolls.”

Wanda stepped forward slowly. “And the ship. Widow’s Kiss… it was mine too. I found a home there. They tore that away.”

Bucky looked at her. This time truly saw her. “You’re the witch,” he said quietly.

Wanda flinched. “I am.”

“No shame in it.” He tilted his head. “Steve hated witch-burners more than he hated pirates.”

That brought a faint smile to her lips. A ghost of one, but real. Natalia said, “We’ll need your help. And your ship.”

Bucky turned to The Leviathan, then back. “You have it. But first…” He dropped to the sand and knelt, carving a line into the palm tree with his knife. He drew a cross. “Graves for the dead,” he muttered. “Even at sea.”

The gangplank creaked beneath their feet as they crossed from sand to deck, the hull of The Leviathan towering above them like the carved jaw of some dark sea beast. Her sails were trimmed in midnight blue now that they’d been furled, the ship smelling of gunpowder, sea-salt, and citrus oil used to clean blood from decks. Bucky walked ahead of them without a word. Yelena sauntered behind, sharp-eyed and cat-shouldered, her blonde braid catching the wind.

She held no weapon in her hand, but Wanda could feel the tension in her—like flint, always a spark away from flame. The others followed slowly. Clint limped up the ramp, shoulder hooked beneath Sam’s, while Tony cast skeptical glances at every crewmember aboard. The Leviathan’s sailors watched them too—some curious, others leering.

Wanda kept close to Natalia. Nat didn’t say a word, but she noticed. When they reached the deck, Bucky turned and barked, “Get them food. Get them quarters. Patch the wounded.”

No questions. Just action. The crew obeyed. Wanda watched with something between awe and suspicion. Bucky wasn’t like Natalia—less cruel, less sharp-tongued—but he held his crew in the palm of his hand, and they knew it.

“You run this ship like she ran the Kiss,” Tony muttered. “Terrifying and oddly efficient.”

Bucky gave a grunt that may have been a laugh. But then came Yelena. She circled around Wanda like a shark around a cut line. She smiled like it was a warning. “So,” she said. “This is the little witch?”

Wanda swallowed. “My name is Wanda.”

“Oh, she has a name,” Yelena said mockingly, “how sweet.”

Natalia rolled her eyes. “Yelena, stop.”

“No, no.” Yelena turned fully to Wanda, arms crossed. “If she’s going to be part of this plan, I want to know she won’t melt my brain while I sleep. Or blow up the ship because she gets emotional.”

“I wouldn’t—” Wanda began.

But Yelena pressed, stepping closer. “You mauled a palm tree, didn’t you? I heard rumours of your powers, I saw the remains of a tree, multiple even.”

“That was—”

“An accident?”

Wanda set her jaw. “A warning.”

Yelena’s brow rose. “Oh, I like her.”

Natalia stepped between them. “Yelena, this isn’t a game.”

“Isn’t it?” Yelena said sweetly, then leaned to the side and peered around her sister to look Wanda up and down. “Tell me, kroshka… are you available?”

Wanda blinked. “I—what?”

“Yelena,” Natalia warned.

“I’m just asking,” Yelena said innocently. “You bring a girl this cute aboard and expect me not to at least inquire?

She’s got those big eyes and the deadly hands, and—” Natalia snapped, “She’s not yours to touch.”

Yelena stilled. So did Wanda. And in that second, a charge moved between all three of them like lightning in a clear sky.

“Oh,” Yelena said slowly. “Oh.”

Natalia’s jaw worked. Wanda looked down at her hands. Bucky finally spoke from behind them, his voice dry and just a little too amused: “This gonna be a problem?”

“No,” Wanda said at once.

“Yes,” Yelena said, grinning. “But not the kind you need to worry about.” She stepped back, hands raised. “Alright, alright. Just keeping her sharp.”

Then she winked at Wanda. “And maybe a little flustered.” Wanda’s ears burned. After, they were shown to a shared set of cabins—two small, warm bunks and one private room. Natalia took the private one without asking.

Wanda, of course, followed her in. “You didn’t need to defend me,” Wanda said as Natalia poured herself water from a dented canteen.

“I didn’t.”

“You told her I wasn’t hers to touch.” Natalia took a slow drink.

“Because you aren’t.” Wanda leaned against the wall.

“But I am yours?”

Nat looked at her then. Not with softness, but with something else—something raw and close and unwieldy. “You’re mine to protect,” she said finally. “Until I decide otherwise.” Wanda’s voice was quiet. “I don’t know if that makes me feel safer or not.” Natalia smirked. “Good. Keeps you alive.” That evening came a council, a dark council.

The war council was held in the captain’s quarters of the Leviathan—a dark, heavy room of stained maps, broken sextants, and thick candlelight that made sweat bead beneath collars. A rough sketch of the Widow’s Kiss lay across the table, hastily redrawn by Clint from memory. Blood still soaked through the bandages wrapped tight around his thigh, and Sam hovered nearby like a second shadow, watching the door.

Tony had found a bit of chalk, and with one hand he began circling weak points: “Here. Hull below the gun deck. If we hit it fast—”

“We sink the whole bloody ship,” Bucky cut in, arms crossed. “No ship, no survivors. No treasure.”

“No vengeance,” Natalia murmured. They all turned to look at her. She sat in the corner, slouched, one boot up on the edge of the table, arms folded across her chest. Her coat was half-off, her shirt open just slightly at the collar—she looked exhausted, her hair a tangle of sweat and wind and sea-stink.

But her eyes were clear. Cold. Sharp. Alive. And now focused on the map. “We don’t sink her,” she said. “We bleed her.” Silence.

Then, slowly, Wanda stepped forward. She didn’t look at Natalia when she spoke—her gaze was on the ship, on the sketch, on the broken line near the quarterdeck. Her voice shook, but it was steady with purpose. “They’re likely to anchor near the Shard Reefs,” she said. “Rumlow won’t go far. He thinks you’re dead. That I’m dead. He thinks he’s won.”

“Then we gut him where he sleeps,” Clint said grimly. “Too risky,” Tony muttered.

But Natalia only smiled. That cruel, familiar grin. “No,” she said. “We make him come to us.” She pulled out a knife and stabbed it through the sketch—through the midship of the drawing—and twisted the blade. “We’ll leak word,” she continued, “that a ship was seen dragging a redheaded woman in chains near Bastard’s Bay. That Wanda was with her, hands in irons. Rumlow’s the kind to want to gloat.” “Bait,” Bucky said. “Exactly.”

“And the trap?”

“An ambush.” Natalia pulled the knife out, pointed the blade toward the harbor on the map. “We draw him in shallow. Half the crew hidden ashore. The other half on the Leviathan. We box them in, sink their rowboats, burn their sails. Take back the Kiss once we bleed out the loyalists.”

“And if he doesn’t come?” Wanda asked, voice quiet.

Natalia finally looked at her. Her voice softened. “He’ll come.”

After the council on deck, Bucky lit a pipe. Yelena leaned back on a crate, sharpening a blade.

Wanda looked at the sea and said, “He was brave, wasn’t he? Steve?”

Bucky didn’t answer for a long time. “at least he died on his feet.”

And from across the deck, Natalia said softly, “That’s the best any pirate can hope for.”

The wind was hot and heavy on the air, thick with brine and sweat and the coppery tang of blood never fully scrubbed from wooden decks.

Natalia stood alone at the railing, a dark bottle in hand. Not just any bottle. Rum. Amber dark. Aged with the bite of fire and salt and time. She tilted it back and swallowed, eyes fluttering shut. The burn hit her like a friend’s slap—sharp and warm and long-missed. She exhaled slowly, and for a moment, she didn’t feel like a captain, or a traitor, or a woman scraping vengeance out of splinters. Just human. Behind her, Wanda climbed up beside her, hesitant. “I thought you weren’t drinking.”

Natalia smirked, the bottle still pressed to her lips. “Wasn’t,” she said, voice raw.

“Is it helping?” She looked at Wanda, eyes rimmed in dark circles.

“Not even a little.” They stood together in silence for a moment. Wind flared Wanda’s hair across her face. Natalia tucked a strand back, rough but careful.

“You were good in there,” Natalia said. “With the plan.”

“I want to help.”

“You are helping.”

Wanda looked down. Her fingers curled on the railing. “I don’t want to kill again,” she whispered.

Natalia’s voice lowered. “Then don’t.”

“But what if I have to?”

Natalia took another swig of rum, held it out. Wanda looked at it warily, then took a small sip. She grimaced. “That’s horrible.”

Natalia laughed—a real one, loud and sharp. “It is,” she said. “But it’s ours.”

The fire crackled low in the belly of the Leviathan. Most of the crew had gone quiet, slumped around their bunks or curled up with stolen warmth.

The scent of salt, sweat, and old gunpowder clung to the air. Above deck, the stars were hidden behind a sky thick with clouds. It was a night without moonlight. And Natalia was drunk. Not just pleasantly warm or softly singing — she was drunk. Her limbs heavy, her voice slurred just beneath the surface, her thoughts twisted in loops of rage and yearning.

She stumbled down the corridor, bottle swinging lazily from her fingers, and she paused outside the cabin James had given to Wanda. A single candle burned behind the door. She didn’t knock. She pushed it open. Wanda stood by the bunk, brushing her hair with her fingers, her clothes still damp from sea mist and a rushed washbasin rinse. The scent of something soft — salt, lavender, maybe — drifted from her skin. She turned. Her eyes were tired.

“Captain.”

“You didn’t take your rum,” Natalia said. Her voice was low, the syllables lazy. “S’good rum. Not the usual piss I drink.”

“I don’t want it.”

Natalia’s eyes drifted down Wanda’s body. “Pity. Thought maybe we could share.”

Wanda’s brows drew together. “Natalia, you’re drunk.”

“Damn right I am.” She stepped inside, too close, the door swinging shut behind her. Wanda backed up slightly, her shoulder brushing the cabin wall. Natalia moved like a shadow — fluid and broken, smoke-wrapped and sad.

“I’ve seen men beg for a taste of something as pretty as you,” she muttered. “Pay gold. Pay blood. But you—” She reached up. Touched Wanda’s cheek. Rough fingers. Callused. Warm. “You run from me. Even when I’ve done nothing but keep you alive.”

“You kissed whores,” Wanda whispered, angry. “You let them touch you while I—”

Natalia didn’t wait. She surged forward, hands on Wanda’s jaw, lips crashing into hers with salt and rum and reckless hunger. It wasn’t tender. It was claiming. Wanda shoved her back — hard. Her palm met Natalia’s cheek with a sound that cracked like a whip. The captain staggered a half step, head whipped to the side. Silence. Wanda’s chest heaved, her hand trembling from the force. Natalia blinked. Her cheek bloomed red.

“You don’t get to touch me,” Wanda said, low and furious. “Not like that. Not because you’re hurting. Or drunk. Or lonely.”

“I—”

“You’ve called me pet. Witch. Useful. Dangerous. You’ve protected me, yes. But you’ve never asked me what I want.” Natalia stood still, her jaw clenched, shame cracking through her drunken haze like lightning on water.

“I thought you—”

“You thought wrong.” The words dropped between them like lead. Natalia’s chest rose. Fell. Then she dropped her eyes and stepped back. “I’ll sleep below,” she said quietly. She turned and left, the door creaking shut behind her.

Chapter Text

The morning broke in pale grey light, soft and slow, dragging itself over the rigging of the Leviathan. The clouds hung low, the sea dull and quiet like it was holding its breath.

Natalia was already awake.

She hadn’t slept. Not really. Not with Clint groaning in his sleep, or Tony coughing sharp with every shift in the bunk below. Not with the taste of salt and shame still raw on her tongue.

She climbed up to the main deck just as the sky began to blush.

Wanda was there. Already.

Wrapped in a stolen coat, her dark hair braided in a messy line down her back, arms folded against the morning chill. She didn’t look at Natalia as she approached.

Natalia stood beside her in silence.

It lingered long enough to hurt.

“Didn’t think I’d find you here,” Natalia said, voice hoarse from sleeplessness and the ghost of rum.

“Didn’t think I’d stay,” Wanda replied, voice low.

Another beat of quiet.

Then—

“I’m sorry.”

Natalia’s voice cracked around the words. She said them like they cost her something. Because they did.

“I wasn’t thinking. I—hell, that’s not even true. I was thinking. Just not clearly. You deserved better than that. Than me. Especially then.”

Wanda turned, finally, eyes meeting hers.

Her expression was unreadable. Her eyes were tired.

But not cruel.

“I’ve been touched without consent before,” she said softly. “I know what it is to have someone take a piece of you because they think they’ve earned it.”

Natalia’s face pinched. Her hands curled on the railing. “I’m not—”

“I know you’re not,” Wanda interrupted. “That’s why I slapped you. Not because you’re like them. Because I needed you not to be.”

The words landed like a gut punch. Natalia leaned forward, her arms braced, her weight bowed.

Then Wanda said, even quieter, “If you hadn’t been drunk… I might have kissed you back.”

Silence again — but different now. Thicker. Hotter. Fragile.

Natalia turned slowly to face her, something flickering in her sea-glass eyes.

“You… would’ve?”

Wanda’s breath hitched. She didn’t answer right away. Just let the question hang like a stormcloud.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “But I would’ve decided. That’s what matters.”

Natalia nodded. She didn’t smile. Her jaw worked, like her own restraint was a chain pulled taut.

“No more rum,” she said, quietly. “Not until this is done. Not until I earn your trust again.”

Wanda tilted her head. “You think you can?”

“I’ll try.”

The trap was set slowly.

Word was seeded at Bastard’s Bay through whispers and coin. Yelena sent one of her fastest men out with a lie on his lips and hunger in his purse: a flame-haired pirate queen captured, her pet witch in chains beside her, bound for sale.

They would meet at the Shard Reefs. A forgotten inlet with jagged rock teeth and water shallow enough to snap the back of a careless ship.

Natalia trained them all. Blades. Signals. Escape paths. Explosive caches. She had command in her voice again, cool and cruel, but never once did she lay a hand on Wanda. Never again without permission. Wanda watched her like a hawk.

Studied the new calm in her movements. The twitch of her fingers when she passed too close. The quiet, stifled ache when their hands brushed by accident.

The tension was a taut thread between them. Beneath every interaction, it hummed — hot, coiled, waiting. A shared breath that never ended. A word never said.

Clint noticed. Yelena smirked often. Sam kept his observations to himself. Tony muttered something about simmering narrative arcs and emotional constipation, but no one really listened. They were all too busy sharpening blades.

The heat of Bastard’s Bay pressed like a hand against the back of their necks. Even the breeze carried the scent of rust and rot — stagnant water caught in reef-mouths, and old blood dried into the grain of weathered wood.

The Leviathan cut the bay’s surface in silent glide.

Its sails were ghost-pale against the morning sky. Red sashes marked its masts, signaling false surrender. From shore, it looked like a slaver’s prize: one redheaded whore of war and her witch, freshly broken and ready to be bought.

But inside?

Inside, it was a blade in a sheath, just waiting to be drawn.

Natalia stood at the bow, wrists bound — loosely, expertly. Leather wrapped her like shackles, but her thumbs pressed light into a hidden slip-knot. One tug, and she’d be free. Wanda was beside her, also in chains, the metal cold against her skin despite the heat. Her face was pale, her shoulders held high like she could rise above the stares boring into her.

They played the part. Captives. Spoils.

And the bay swallowed the lie whole.

Natalia caught Wanda’s eye — and for a moment, the world shrank down to that narrow space between them. Not rope, not sea, not blood or betrayal. Just breath and fire, and the thrum of shared danger.

“You good?” Natalia murmured.

“No,” Wanda whispered back, her voice tight. “I feel sick.”

“You’ll be fine.” Natalia’s voice was rough but steady. “You’re not a prisoner.”

“I’m still bait.”

“So am I.”

The ship slipped closer to the narrow reef-mouth, where the Widow’s Kiss waited beyond — anchored, manned by traitors who once called themselves her crew.

On the shore, Yelena crouched in the thick brush with Clint beside her, his leg still weak but his aim steady. Sam crouched further down the slope, wings ready to snap open the second the signal was given. Tony waited below deck, his jury-rigged gunpowder traps primed and buried in the sand. The ambush would hit fast, but first — the trap had to look real.

Wanda was shaking, just slightly. Natalia could feel it through the tension between them.

“Look at me,” the captain murmured.

Wanda glanced up. Wide, scared eyes.

Natalia leaned in. Close. Close enough for breath to meet breath. For warmth to chase cold.

And then, without another word, she kissed her.

Not softly. Not cruelly either. Just real.

A kiss of salt and tension and heat and lies. Wanda stiffened at first — but didn’t pull away. For a moment too long, she kissed back, trembling lips pressed to the one person who might yet protect her, or doom her. She didn’t know.

But it felt real.

A sharp voice smirked behind them. “Well now, ain’t that sweet.”

They broke apart, slowly, deliberately, as Brock Rumlow stepped onto the Leviathan’s deck.

He grinned like a jackal.

“Thought you said she was a prisoner, not a pet.”

Behind him, two former crewmates—Pierce and Vane—dragged up the boarding ramp, hands on blades, eyes on Wanda. Another stepped close enough to spit at Natalia’s boots.

“This the witch that fried Mercer? She does not look the same. So much grime and dirt on her pretty face.”

Natalia didn’t flinch. “That was a blade in the gut. Not fire.”

“She threw him into the mast like he was made of feathers,” Pierce growled. “You think we forgot how he screamed?”

Rumlow stepped between them, eyeing Wanda like she was a beast in a cage. His gaze swept down her form, curled in contempt.

“You’re pretty for a killer,” he said, voice low and mocking. “Bet you scream sweeter than Mercer did, too.”

Natalia’s fingers twitched against the ropes. Wanda’s whole body went still. But she didn’t look at Rumlow. She looked at Natalia.

“Now, now,” Rumlow continued, oblivious to the coiled wire of tension between the women. “We’re gonna have to make sure you don’t try that magic trick again. Might be better if we put you on your knees and—”

“Say that again,” Natalia cut in, voice flat and deadly.

Rumlow smiled wider. “I said—”

“No,” she said, stepping forward slightly, just a fraction. “Say it again. While I’ve still got these ropes on. While you still think you’re safe.”

He laughed. The wrong sound.

The crew of the Widow’s Kiss began to board, slow and unhurried. Spears clinked against gunpowder barrels, boots scraping across wood. One by one, Rumlow’s loyal dogs began to fill the deck.

Wanda took in the growing numbers.

Their plan was simple: let them believe. Let them draw close. Let them touch their stolen prize. Then spring the trap. And bleed them dry.

But her pulse pounded. Her hands twitched. Magic whispered under her skin like fire under ice.

She leaned close to Natalia, her voice barely a breath.

“I don’t know if I can hold it.”

“You can,” Natalia replied, steel in her voice. “Because I’m with you.”

Their wrists pressed close. Almost touching. Almost—

“Ready?” came Yelena’s voice in Natalia’s ear, soft over the tiny shell-stone device Tony had stolen from a navy ship.

Natalia let her lips twitch. A predator’s smile.

“Showtime,” she whispered.

Blood began before anyone shouted.
Before a blade was drawn.
Before even the trap was sprung.

It started with a sound.

A hiss of steel unsheathing — sharp, clean, the whisper of death to come — and then the fire took hold.

Natalia snapped the rope from her wrists with one jerk of practiced fingers. Wanda blinked, startled, the illusion gone in a heartbeat. The charade of capture scattered like ash in the wind.

“NOW!” Natalia shouted, voice a war drum. The bay exploded.

From the cliffs above, Sam launched with a pair of firecrackers strapped to his shoulders—Tony’s improvised wings making his silhouette blaze like an avenging bird. Below, Clint’s arrow flew straight into the blackpowder keg hidden in the sand. A boom ruptured the beachline. Shrapnel ripped through the low tide, and a rain of blood followed.

Then chaos. Full, terrible, glorious chaos.

Brock Rumlow charged first.

He made it halfway across the deck before Natalia met him, saber drawn, boots steady.

“You always were a stubborn bitch,” he spat.

“And you,” she growled, “always smelled like rot.”

He struck. Their blades screamed as they collided, sparks leaping between them. Rumlow was brutal—swinging like a hammer, trying to break her by force. But Natalia was a dancer in blood. Graceful. Deadly.

Each parry was close. Each dodge tighter than the last.

Rumlow caught her across the ribs. Her shirt tore. Blood welled—but her eyes didn’t blink.

“You want her,” she hissed, blade locked against his, “the witch?”

“I want what’s mine,” he snarled.

“You were never captain.” With a snarl, Natalia spun, ducked, and drove her saber clean through his stomach. He gasped, stunned.

“I am,” she whispered. She didn’t give him time to speak. She twisted.

His scream was cut short when she yanked the blade free with a wet rip, and his knees hit the deck like felled timber. She kicked his body into the sea.

No grave. No eulogy.

Only blood.

Around them Sam roared through the sky, Clint shot from afar and the others clashed with swords. Wanda stood amid the storm. Her eyes wide. Chest heaving. Magic crackled under her skin like lightning in a thundercloud.

Zemo stepped toward her. No weapons. Only that voice, oily and calm: “You don’t want this, girl. Power like yours doesn’t end in mercy. It ends in ruin.”

Wanda flinched, shaking. Then Zemo reached for her. She didn’t think. She broke. A scream tore from her mouth — raw, guttural, not even words. And then the air ripped.

Scarlet tendrils of light burst from her hands. They snatched Zemo mid-step and dragged him backwards into the broken mast like a rag doll. Bones crunched. The timber splintered through his chest.

He didn’t scream. His eyes just went wide. Then glassy.

Then still. Wanda dropped him with a sob. Her breath caught in her throat.

Pierce and Vane ran at her — one with a pistol, the other a hatchet raised high. She didn’t hesitate this time.

A wave of red swept out from her like a flood. The pistol exploded in Pierce’s hand. The hatchet melted mid-air. Their bodies lifted—lifted—and then the air twisted.

There was a sound like fabric tearing, only it was flesh. Bones snapped in midair. Wanda’s scream cracked the sky.

And the men were ripped apart. Limbs torn from sockets. Blood flung like ribbons onto the mast, the deck, the very sea.

The crew froze. Silence. Horrified, stunned silence. Wanda’s face was wet. With tears. With blood. No one could tell anymore.

Natalia looked up from Rumlow’s corpse. Saw Wanda glowing, heaving, her hands shaking.

She stepped forward slowly. “Wanda.”

No answer.

“Wanda, look at me.”

Her head snapped around. Her eyes weren’t eyes anymore — they were glowing, endless, terrifying.

“I killed them,” she whispered.

Natalia sheathed her blade and crossed the deck without fear. Through blood. Through smoke. Through the very air still shivering with residual magic.

“You did,” she said. “You had to.”

“I didn’t want to.”

“I know.” Natalia reached out. “But if you hadn’t—we’d be dead.”

Wanda’s magic pulsed. A last surge of rage and panic, and…

Natalia touched her face. The magic flickered. Shuddered. And broke. Just like that. Wanda collapsed forward. Natalia caught her, cradled her. The deck was covered in bodies.

Ash rained from a burning sail. Above them, the Widow’s Kiss rocked gently on the blood-soaked tide — retaken.

Chapter Text

The battle was over.
But the echoes stayed.
Blood clung to the decks like second skin, and smoke curled from what used to be the quarter-sail. Wind still whispered through the ropes—quiet now, like it too knew what had happened here.

Wanda sat alone on the portside rail of The Widow’s Kiss.

She wasn’t glowing anymore.

Just… trembling.

Her dress was crusted in blood—hers, theirs, who could tell. Her palms, where her magic had poured from like fire from hell, were raw and pink and shaking. Her breath came in shallow gasps. There was blood on her neck. Her ear. Her lip.

She didn’t wipe it away.

She didn’t move at all.

Only the sea moved, slow and lapping, black and silver under a crescent moon.

Behind her, footsteps.

Then silence.

Then softer: “Wanda.”

She didn’t turn. She knew the voice.

Natalia.

She felt the warmth before she felt the touch—a coat, rough and long, settled around her shoulders. She should’ve shrugged it off. She didn’t.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Natalia said.

Wanda didn’t answer.

“Clint’s stable,” Natalia added after a moment. “Sam’s bruised, not broken. Tony’s already screaming about fixing the damn rudder.”

Still nothing.

Natalia crouched beside her now. Close. Quiet.

“I know what it feels like.”

Wanda’s voice cracked when it came. “Do you?”

“To rip a man open with your bare hands?” Natalia looked out at the waves. “No. But I know what it is to watch the life leave a man’s eyes. To do it even when you don’t want to. Because it’s the only way you make it home.”

Silence.

The wind ruffled Wanda’s curls against her cheeks. They were dry now, stiff with salt.

“I liked it,” she whispered.

Natalia looked at her.

“I liked when they screamed.”

Natalia’s jaw tensed. Not in judgment. In knowing.

“And I hated myself for it. I still do.”

“I’m not a good person,” Wanda said. “I thought I was. But I’m not.”

Natalia reached out. Slowly. She touched Wanda’s wrist. Then curled her fingers around her hand, firm and steady.

“Do you think I’m a good person?” she asked.

Wanda finally looked at her. Red-rimmed eyes. Pale face. “No.”

Natalia smiled. Not unkindly. “Then maybe we’re in good company.”

Wanda let out a broken breath. Somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

Natalia rose to her feet and held out her hand.

“Come on,” she said. “You’re covered in gore. Let’s wash it off.”

⸻

There was no bath on The Kiss. No steaming basin or perfumed water like the pleasure houses had.

But there was a bucket, and seawater, and Natalia knelt at Wanda’s side as she poured it over her arms, her shoulders. Wanda sat in a daze, still in torn clothes, still silent. The cold water made her flinch.

Natalia rolled up her sleeves and scrubbed gently.

“I used to bathe Yelena like this when she was little,” she said. “She hated the cold. She’d scream at me in three languages.”

Wanda gave the tiniest smirk.

“I think she still would,” Natalia added, flicking water at her.

A breath—sharp and sudden—escaped Wanda’s lips. Not quite a laugh. But close.

Natalia slowed her motions, cloth soaked and dripping. She paused at Wanda’s hands, the rawest part of her.

“May I?”

Wanda nodded.

Natalia cleaned them like they were precious. Like they weren’t the hands of a girl who’d killed. Or bled. Or burned.

Wanda watched her.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Wanda said quietly.

Natalia stilled.

“I shouldn’t have slapped you,” Wanda went on. “But I was scared. And you—”

“I deserved it,” Natalia said. “I was drunk. Stupid. I kissed you because I wanted to forget everything I am. But you—you don’t deserve that.”

Wanda’s voice dropped. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to kiss you.”

Natalia looked up, slowly.

“I just didn’t want it to be like that.”

Their eyes met. Something old and fragile between them. Something dangerous.

Natalia said nothing.

She set the cloth aside. Took Wanda’s hands between hers. She leaned forward just enough to let her forehead brush Wanda’s.

“Then when you want it,” she whispered, “you take it. No one else. Not ever again.”

And for the first time that night, Wanda exhaled.

The sea was still whispering outside. Blood still clung to the deck. The world was still broken.

But in this quiet moment, in the salt and ash and blood and magic—they weren’t.

The deck was quiet.

The Widow’s Kiss drifted lazily on calm waters, its sails loose and battered but still catching wind. The last embers of dusk clung to the clouds, casting everything in gold, red, and deep, aching blue. Somewhere below, Clint was cursing in pain, and Tony was trying to play doctor with a bottle of brandy. Sam had found oranges.

But up here, at the top deck, just outside the captain’s quarters, the world had slowed.

Wanda stood alone at the railing.

Not entirely alone—she could feel her. Behind her. Watching. Waiting.

“Are you going to keep standing there?” Wanda asked, voice soft.

Natalia stepped forward.

“I didn’t want to… intrude.”

Wanda smiled, faint but genuine. She turned, leaning against the rail.

“I think we’re past that now.”

Natalia let out a breath. She looked terrible. Her knuckles were split. Her shirt torn at the shoulder. There was dried blood in her hair.

And Wanda had never thought she looked more human. Or beautiful.

They didn’t speak for a while. The waves did the talking.

Then, finally:

“I’m sorry it took this long,” Natalia said.

Wanda tilted her head. “Took what?”

Natalia reached into her coat—worn, rough, almost ceremonial at this point—and pulled something out. A dark, weather-beaten tricorn hat.

Wanda stared at it.

“You’re giving me… your hat?”

Natalia shrugged. “Not my hat. A hat. I had it stashed since Yelena tried to wear it drunk and nearly fell overboard.”

A pause.

“You’re giving me a pirate hat,” Wanda said, biting back a grin.

“A captain’s hat,” Natalia corrected, stepping closer. She held it out. “To remind you. You’re not anyone’s prisoner. Not anymore.”

Wanda’s face softened.

She reached out. Took the hat.

It was heavier than she expected. Smelled of sea and salt and gunpowder.

She looked up at Natalia, something unreadable behind her eyes.

“Does this mean I’m free?” she whispered.

Natalia’s gaze dropped to her lips. She nodded once.

“It means,” she said, “you get to choose. Stay. Go. Love me. Hate me. Burn the whole damn sea if you want. Just know… you never have to run again.”

Wanda’s breath caught.

She swallowed.

And stepped forward.

Her hands found Natalia’s coat, her fingers curling into the fabric. She rose onto her toes, just enough. Just close enough.

And then she kissed her.

Not like before. Not uncertain. Not with fear trembling in her bones.

But full.

Sure.

A slow kiss. One that tasted like sea-salt and gunpowder and something almost sweet beneath it. Natalia didn’t rush it. She barely moved at first. Let Wanda take what she needed. Let her lead.

When they finally parted, Wanda didn’t pull away. She pressed her forehead to Natalia’s collar, breathed in her scent, let the weight of everything—the deaths, the blood, the fire—spill quietly down her cheeks.

Natalia held her. No words. Just arms. Just warmth.

When the tears were gone, Wanda pulled back and looked up at her again.

“Don’t ever drink that much again,” she said.

Natalia gave a half-smile. “That a threat?”

“No,” Wanda said. “It’s a promise.”

They stood like that for a long time—two bruised women, one in a blood-stained coat and the other in a captain’s hat too big for her head, the stars beginning to spill out over the sky.

Finally, Natalia spoke again.

“So,” she said. “Where do you want to go, first mate?”

Wanda grinned.

“Anywhere.”