Chapter Text
Bucky was running on pure instinct, luxuries like thought abandoned with chunks of flesh and he didn't know how much blood. His band hadn't let him go easy; tritons had no patience for cowards and a coward was any triton who swam from a fight.
He bared his teeth, saltwater washing away lingering traces of blood and skin. Not his. They'd made a mistake trying to kill him and they'd paid for it as he'd fought his way free. They'd given chase, but not for long. They had a job to do, the one he'd refused. The one that had driven him away.
They were mercenaries, just like him, because tritons were good for nothing else, but as he'd listened to what they'd been hired to do everything in him had rebelled. He'd fight soldiers, navies, other triton mercs, but he wouldn't slaughter innocents. Not for Icarians, not for anyone.
Guess I'm not a mercenary anymore.
He dove deeper as a ship passed overhead, the glow from his tail illuminating the night-dark sea, and came to a shocked stop as a massive, vaguely human shape sank past him, bubbles trailing as it tipped its head towards the distant surface.
He didn't hesitate. He dived after it, barely managing to wrap his arms around its broad chest, and swam for the surface. It didn't fight, just hung loosely in his grasp, but as they burst out of the water into the open air, it drew in a deep, gasping breath.
He drew in a deep gasping breath.
Under the light of the moon, Bucky could see what he'd grabbed. He had horns, even if they'd been cut half off and capped, a long bull's head, neat, curved ears, and—he twitched his tail, fins curling—hooves.
He had hold of a minotaur.
He was bleeding all over a minotaur.
"Are you going to eat me?" The voice that rumbled out of him was deep enough Bucky thought it might shake mountains.
The question was fair. He was a triton. Tritons ate people, and they ate them alive and thrashing. "No. I'm going to take you to shore."
"Why?"
"Can you swim?"
"No."
"There's your answer."
The minotaur didn't say anything else, so Bucky started swimming, following the waves, holding tight, hoping his blood wouldn't attract anything. It shouldn't, even bleeding he wouldn't smell like prey, but he didn't want to fight something off and try and keep his...passenger?...above water.
His passenger was silent for the long but uneventful swim. The sun was rising and Bucky was exhausted by the time a rocky shore came into view. He made for the flattest spot and when they reached the shallows, he let go. The minotaur stood, water streaming off his pale brown fur and sodden canvas pants, which were lumpy with bulging pockets.
Bucky lay in the shallows, leaning on a rock. If the minotaur wanted to step on him with one of his massive hooves, he decided he didn't care. He just wanted to lay here and rest. With his torso out of the water, he'd stop bleeding eventually.
A hand on his shoulder made him surge up, tail coiled under him, fingers curling into glittering black claws, sharp teeth bared.
"You're bleeding."
Bucky eyed him warily.
"I can help with that." He fumbled with one of his pockets and pulled out a package wrapped in smooth, shiny material. He sat on a rock and unwrapped it on his lap. The contents looked dry. And worrying. Curved needles, shiny and sharp, and thread. "Some of those should be stitched."
"I'll be fine."
"Maybe. Maybe not." He rested his big hands on his knees. "You helped me. Let me help you."
He thought about it. He thought about letting a stranger touch him. Letting a stranger push needles through his skin. He almost wanted to laugh, because a stranger would be a lot less likely to hurt him than his own kind. These weren't the first wounds he'd gotten from other tritons.
But he'd left. He was never going back, could never go back, even if he wanted to. And he didn't, he didn't. Word would be passed that he'd abandoned a fight. If they saw him, they'd kill him.
"Yes," he said against every instinct. "What do I have to do?"
"Can you come up here? Out of the water?"
He hand-walked up over the rocks and arranged himself at the minotaur's hooves. He didn't flinch when he felt hands on him. He didn't flinch at the pinch of the needle or the pull of the thread.
"Bruce," the minotaur said.
"What?"
"My name."
"Oh." Bucky let his mind settle on the rhythm of the stitching, because it was the first time a non-triton had told him their name. Told him, personally. People that hired the band of triton mercenaries he'd belonged to would sometimes give their names, more usually their rank or title, but no one had ever given theirs to Bucky. "Bucky. I'm Bucky."
* * *
The rocky shore wasn't suitable for either of them. When they left it made an unspoken and wary kind of sense to leave together.
Eventually they found a cove near the great forest and Bruce disappeared into it, to make a home among the trees—or so Bucky assumed. He could hand-walk up the beach; the deeps of the forest were beyond him. Bucky lived under the waves, but he returned regularly to the cove, never swimming too far away. Like two cats, they shared territory that butted up against each other, even if they could go weeks without speaking.
It took some doing, but Bucky managed to convince a ship that regularly passed nearby that he wasn't trying to lure them into becoming a meal, and traded ancient relics pulled from the bottom of the sea for things Bruce needed.
In the end, it turned around and bit him. The ship-folk became too interested in a triton who sought trade and not slaughter, too interested in what he might be able to bring them, and tried to catch him for themselves.
It was kill them or leave, and he wasn't willing to kill. He left. Bruce came with him.
They found another cove, concealed by rocky hills on both sides and home to a circle of stone Bruce said had once been an ancient lighthouse. It provided shelter and a place Bucky could store things safe from the weather and the world.
It was maybe closer to The City than either of them would have liked, but not so close they were concerned about coming to its attention. Once more, Bruce made his home in the forest, Bucky made his home in the cove, and any ancient relics he found, he left right where they were.