Chapter Text
A brisk wind snapped the sails of the Howling Commando to full tautness, blowing Bucky’s hair into his face. He turned and barked an order to the crew behind him, getting the ship to lean into her course, tracing a snaking path up behind the ship they were chasing.
Once a fast cargo vessel, the Commando now had a reputation as a fast-strike ship. She would sneak up in broad daylight, hit the unsuspecting victim and be gone before the crew of the other ship even knew what had happened.
Most didn’t know that the Commando ’s targets were very carefully selected, always owned by those who could, and in many cases, should, take the hit. Unlike a more ‘traditional’ pirate, Bucky and his crew left the other ship and their crew intact, taking only light valuable goods.
Unless, in a case like this, there were slaves involved. They had actually taken a contract this time, from a mysterious benefactor who had contracted their services several times in the past, one M. Carter.
It was four years after they had liberated the Commando , and Bucky’s least favorite runs were the ones that involved slaves. They were always unpleasant, rarely yielded much profit, and sometimes there were children. Slaves were one thing, but, well. Bucky had seen too many things in the last four years to have any sympathy for people who would do those things to children.
The Commando drew alongside the other ship, Malvern , only becoming visible to the much taller vessel as she drew abreast of it. There was no small magic in that, a spell Bucky had paid handsomely for, but one that had been worth its weight in gold a thousand times over. A deckhand on the other vessel looked down at the Commando, and shouted in warning, but it was too late.
The Commandos swarmed up the side of the slave ship, and soon had its crew rounded up, tied to the mast. The slaves were brought from below deck, and stood in a huddled mass off to the side.
“All right,” Bucky said, in a well practiced speech, to the slavers. “We’re giving this ship to her, ahem, passengers. Here’re your choices. You can jump overboard. I don’t think any of us will stop you. You can stay for the tender mercies of the passengers . Or, you can get on a rowboat and be left at sea. Make your choice, and quickly.”
Most of the crew elected to get on the rowboat. Not an unreasonable choice, there were islands not far from here, and it wasn’t out of the question that they could get there.
If they had oars.
Which they wouldn’t.
The tropical sun beat down on Bucky’s head as he turned to the shivering slaves. Most of them were women and children, a few skinny men among the group.
“How many of you can sail?” he asked. A few raised their hands. Not as many as he would have liked, but enough. “Good. We’ll give you an escort into the nearest port. Our benefactor will meet you there. I’m sorry, I don’t know what happens after that. I’m not paid to.”
He nodded to his crew, and they set about making arrangements. Before an hour had passed the two ships were underway again.
It took a week to come into port, by which time, the entire original crew of the other ship had either left or… mysteriously disappeared. They pulled into the docks, the Commando slotting in narrowly beside the big-bellied Malvern. Their benefactor, or rather, his agent was waiting on the dock. Bucky came down from the Commando ’s deck to meet him.
Jarvis, always an affable man, took the written report Bucky handed him and tucked it into his coat pocket. In return he handed Bucky a wallet that jingled with coin. Bucky tilted his head in thanks, and put the wallet securely down the front of his shirt.
“I trust the passengers will be well taken care of?” he asked.
“As always, Mr. Barnes,” Jarvis said gravely.
Bucky smiled, and turned back to the Commando, dropping down off the dock onto the deck.
“We’ll be off, then,” he said, gesturing to the crew. They knew they couldn’t linger, not in this port, and jumped to their stations, backing the ship out of its slip, and into the harbor.
It was a quick journey out into the open ocean, and there, Bucky went into the heart of the ship to reactivate the invisibility spell. He pressed the glyphs carved into the mast down here in prescribed order, and gave a push with the tiny well of power within himself. The silver light of the spell flared, and spiralled up the mast before, above him and out of his sight, unfurling from the sails, and dropping over the ship.
He turned to go when a noise from the dark far corner of the room caught his attention, and he snapped around, reaching out to grab whoever it was by the shirt. He brought them out into the light, a skinny boy, lank blond hair falling over a gaunt face. Scared blue eyes (strangely familiar blue eyes?) stared at him. He slammed the boy against the cabin wall, a snarl on his face.
“What are you doing, hiding in here?” he asked in a low, dangerous voice.
The boy, no, man, he was older than Bucky had thought on first glance, gulped nervously. “‘M sorry,” he said. “It was safe in there, felt… right. Please don’t hurt me.”
Bucky loosened his grip on the man’s shirt and took a step back. “You were on the slave ship?” he asked.
“Yes,” the other said. “I… don’t know how I ended up there, though. My memory… is gone. All I know is my name.”
“What’s that?” Bucky asked. “I’m Bucky.”
“Steve,” Steve said.
“Well, Steve,” Bucky said. “We haven’t ever had a stowaway on this ship before.”
“I was gonna leave when you were in port, but I didn’t have a chance,” Steve said.
“That’s by design,” Bucky said. “But come up to the deck. You look like you need food.”
“You’re not going to throw me in the brig?” Steve asked.
“Don’t have one,” Bucky said. “Besides, I’m sure you can do something useful. Earn your passage like any passenger.”
They went up to the deck, and if the crew were surprised that Bucky returned with a companion, none asked any questions. Steve wolfed down the food he was offered, a dish that Bucky privately thought better suited a seal (or a selkie) than a human, but it was more edible than many rations were at sea.
He then set Steve to work scrubbing the deck. Not too much, the man was clearly in delicate shape, but enough that it felt like he was doing something to earn his way. Bucky retired to his cabin to rifle through the papers that had been included in the wallet Jarvis had handed him. M. Carter didn’t always include a new contract, but he often gave Bucky new leads on where to find his next prey. Sometimes Bucky wished he could meet the man so he could kiss him. Without Carter’s patronage, the Commando would’ve been out of commission long ago.
Soon, after the sun set, and the crew was below decks asleep, Bucky returned to the deck, pacing the length of it, looking up at the stars. They were different here in the south, and he felt a moment of longing for the stars of his cold northern home, but no, it was far more friendly to his kind here. Pirates. He spat at the word, but it was still true.
A footstep behind him made Bucky whirl around. It was Steve, coming up from the hold.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “Couldn’t sleep. Missed the open sky for some reason.” He leaned on the rail next to Bucky. “The stars are different. I can’t say why, but they look wrong.”
“They change depending on where you go,” Bucky said. “They don’t look like this where I’m from, either.”
They stood in companionable silence until Bucky yawned, and knew it was time to go to bed.
The days fell into a pattern after that, Steve worked himself into the crew. It turned out he could fight like a caged cat, and taught the Commandos things none of them had even thought of. He could cook half-well, which was a long shot more than the rest of them, except Morita, and it was nice to have a backup. Bucky would often find himself talking late into the night with Steve. Though the man remembered nothing about his life, he was more than interested to hear about Bucky’s. It reminded Bucky more than a little of the nights he had spent on the beach in his childhood with his selkie.
If he didn’t know better, he’d say he was falling in love with the man. But if what his gran had said was true, he could only fall in love once, and he knew, even all these years later, he still loved his selkie with a depth he didn’t truly fathom.
It was three months after Steve’s impromptu induction into the Commando ’s crew, and the ship was chasing a spice vessel. According to M. Carter’s intel, this was a particularly nasty spice, one that would end up in the ocean as soon as the Commandos got their hands on it.
The Commando slid up alongside the ship, and relieved it of its cargo (and a great deal of gold, to boot) before slipping off into the bright sun, almost before the captain realized what was happening. With the invisibility spell reactivated, Bucky allowed the ship to slow, just a bit. Steve was sitting on the deck, his shirt off, surrounded by documents from the spice ship. He had a head for that sort of thing. Bucky absently noticed the bright pink line of a scar along one of his sides. It scratched at an odd memory for him, but he shook it away.
It came as a shock to the entire crew when another ship appeared on the horizon, and appeared to be headed straight for the Commando . Which shouldn’t be possible, given the invisibility spell.
But indeed the ship, a sleek vessel similar to the Commando , turned just before it would have hit the Commando . Bucky reached for his sword, preparing for a fight, but instead, he found Jarvis waving frantically at him from the other ship.
“What?” he said, dumbfounded.
“It’s urgent,” Jarvis shouted. “Come over!”
Bucky looked around, and Dugan nodded. They furled the sail and dropped sea anchor, allowing the ship to come to a full stop, the other ship slowing alongside it. Gold letters on the stern proclaimed it the Angela . Crossing over open water was dangerous, but the crew of the Commando did it with regularity.
Bucky grasped the rope and swung himself over to the deck of the Angela, Dugan right behind him, and (to his surprise), Steve as well.
“What are you doing?” he hissed to Steve.
“I know this ship,” Steve said. “I don’t know how.”
It was too late to argue now, and he wouldn’t do it in front of Jarvis anyway.
“Welcome to the Angela ,” a voice said from behind Jarvis. A man, slightly built, though somehow more robust than Steve, stepped out from the shadows. He was finely dressed, and wore an elaborate hat. His voice was measured and clipped in a way that tickled at the back of Bucky’s memory in the same way that Steve’s scar had, but he brushed it aside. “I’m sure you have questions, but there isn’t much time. I am Carter, though you may have gathered that.”
Bucky sketched a short bow. “Sir,” he said.
Carter waved a hand at him. “I don’t stand on much ceremony. Please, come into my cabin. Your companions are more than welcome.”
They followed him into his cabin, a plushly appointed room that made Bucky more than a little jealous of his own spartan space. They sat at a table, on a bench built into the floor. A strange bundle rested in the middle of the table, an odd grey color that Bucky could almost place.
Carter shut the door behind himself, and then sat at an empty space. He looked Bucky in the eye. “I’m going to be direct, if you don’t mind?” Bucky nodded acquiescence. “I’ve been using your services. The ships you’ve been going after, even without a contract, have been on a particular list of mine. They all work for the Hydra.” Bucky and Dugan both sucked in their breath at the name.
“I see from your reactions you’ve heard of it? Well, lately it seems to be gathering magic around itself. This, for example,” Carter said, gesturing to the bundle on the table. He shook it out, and it revealed itself to be a cloak.
No
A
Sealskin.
A selkie ’s sealskin.
A selkie’s sealskin bearing a dark scar on the flank.
Bucky’s selkie’s sealskin.
Three things happened at once.
Bucky reached out for the sealskin, his hand shaking.
Steve reached for the sealskin, his eyes mesmerised.
Carter said the word selkie.
Before Bucky or Carter could move, Steve had his hands on the sealskin, and had flung it over his shoulders. Bucky had never seen a selkie shift before, but Steve seemed to shimmer before his eyes, then he twisted, and in place of the man was a seal.
He looked over at Bucky, his blue eyes wide in his grey seal-face.
“I remember you,” he said in the strange accent of the selch.
“Steve,” Bucky said.
The selkie shuddered, a faerie responding to the power of his name.
“It seems we have much to discuss,” Carter said, regarding the selkie on his couch with considerable grace.