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The Arctic Ocean is quiet and cold.
A shoal of fish flits across the abyssal plain, changing direction as a shadow appears against the seafloor.
It’s been almost 70 years since the Star of the Sea disappeared into the waves, never to surface again. The wreck lies at the bottom of the Eurasian Basin, what’s left of the crew still encased in their underwater tomb. The accident was reported as having claimed the lives of two dozen men, no survivors.
To the world, Steve Rogers is dead.
He still remembers the bone-deep cold, the deafening sound of tearing sea ice. He remembers thinking, fearing he was going to die.
It’s now a long time since he’s truly been afraid of anything.
It has taken him decades, but he has slowly adapted to the extreme environment. He can hold his breath longer than any human, his body now able to withstand the freezing waters of the deep. He hasn’t really aged, nor has his companion.
Bucky swims to his side, his tail curving around Steve’s back in a protective gesture.
Bucky.
Steve’s been calling him that longer than he now remembers.
James is what the other captain called me. I want the name you gave me instead, he said, and who was Steve to argue?
They exchange a look of wordless understanding, born out of a lifetime together, and swim towards the ship. Steve knows he’s put off visiting the wreck long enough.
“I was on the navigational bridge when it happened,” he thinks, intentionally enough for Bucky to hear him.
Bucky nods, his eyes scanning the wreckage for the closest point of entry.
“Over there, by the stern,” Steve continues, and Bucky swims to the left, his long hair trailing behind him.
Steve drifts along the starboard side, knowing this is a long shot — the impact probably damaged the hull, making the interior of the ship unreachable. He can’t help thinking about what they might find inside; bones preserved by the icy depths, bits of insignia buried in the silt.
Steve has barely reached the stern when Bucky swims back into view and shakes his head, confirming what Steve already suspected. Bucky has something wrapped around his wrist; two plates hanging from a chain. Steve is already holding his breath but right then he thinks his heart might as well stop, too. Bucky unwinds the dog tags and hands them over, an unreadable expression on his beautiful face.
Steve takes a look and curls his fingers around the metal.
Timothy A C Dugan
The moment he closes his eyes it hits him: the metallic groan of the ship, running footsteps. The howl of the ocean, and the blindingly cold wind. The scent of bourbon.
Laughter.’This 'ere storm? There’s worse ways to go, Cap.’
When Steve opens his eyes he sees Bucky has drifted further away, as if to give him space. He also realises he’s squeezing the tags hard enough to hurt, the corners digging into his palm.
He hangs suspended between a past that feels like it belongs to someone else, and a future that is as vast and unknown as the waters around him. The present is a moment fossilized in time, Steve and the man he loves at its center, and he finds himself wishing the sea would have taken him even sooner.
He looks at Bucky; lengths of hair floating around him, eyes that have seen things Steve cannot even imagine. Bucky, who pulled him from the maw of death, and brought him into this world away from the world.
As Steve watches in silent awe Bucky stills, staring off into the undersea horizon. He must hear something, since his vibrant tail twirls around and he swims back quickly, moving his head in a gesture Steve knows all too well.
Shark.
A large scar runs along Steve’s left thigh — a reminder of a time when he couldn’t yet swim fast enough. Surviving the attack was his second chance at cheating death, and he doesn’t really want to find out how many he’s got left.
(Who knew that some of the oldest and deadliest predators lived in the coldest waters? Steve sure didn’t, before.)
Bucky’s metal hand wraps around his wrist and the tags slide from his grasp, raising a small cloud of sand as they hit the seabed.
~~~
Steve has Bucky pressed up against the edge of the basin, his hand deep in Bucky’s hair. It’s Bucky, though, who kisses like he’s going off to war — a webbed hand splayed between Steve’s shoulder blades, his sharp tongue coaxing Steve’s mouth open. His tail moves around them in a loose swirl, the fin tickling the backs of Steve’s knees.
Steve pulls back to press a kiss under Bucky’s eye, his hand tightening around a hip covered in coral scales. “It’s okay, Buck. I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. We’re both right here.”
Bucky lets out a sound that’s halfway to a sob and Steve swallows it, licking in between the parted lips. Bucky always tastes slightly salty, like a mouthful of tears. Steve brings his hand up to cup Bucky’s jaw, caressing the gills with the other.
“Steve,” Bucky sighs, eyes fluttering shut.
He leans closer to mouth at the openings on Bucky’s neck. Even after all this time, the feel of them against his lips — that Bucky allows himself to be touched in such an intimate way — sets off an ache behind Steve's ribs. Bucky shivers in his arms, melting into the caress.
~~~
They’re sitting side by side on ice-covered rocks, somewhere above the underwater tunnel to their cave.
“There was nothing you could have done. You were the only one I found alive,” Bucky says, although Steve already knows this.
“They didn’t deserve to die like that.” He's holding a pair of dog tags, brushing his thumb over the embossed letters.
They’re his own, hidden all these years inside a crevice in the cave wall.
“Nobody does, Steve.” Ice crystals have formed in Bucky’s hair, sparkling like stars.
Steve keeps staring into the waves, still thinking about the watery grave he escaped, only barely.
Only because of Bucky.
“I hate it,” he says, with no real spite in his voice.
“It brought you home.” Bucky shrugs with one shoulder, the gesture achingly familiar, his slate grey eyes fixed on a point low in the northern sky. “Maybe one day they will find our bones together, somewhere down there.”
Steve thinks he wants nothing more, and Bucky takes his hand into his own.
The wind picks up.
Steve throws the tags into the ocean.