What the Water Gave Me

Chapter Seventeen

Bucky did come back, and he announced himself by pelting Steve with things from below. Steve scrambled, surprised, as wet objects hit him in the face and rained down around him. A few sopping wet coats. A waterlogged toiletries box. Some capped water bottles, and other necessities. Steve caught everything and placed it in a corner and leaned down on his stomach over the edge of the rock to see Bucky setting up a giant piece of rusting sheetmetal against the rock opposite him so he could see it’s surface clearly. Then, he picked up a marker.

“Hello, Steve!!” Bucky wrote. “Hello, hello, hello!!” Steve stared at him now, now that he wasn’t dying, and took him in. His tail was scarred over horribly where Harry had hurt him and Steve could see it under the water. He had scars from the bullets in his back, too, but other than than, he looked fine. He glowed, in fact, at having seen Steve, and Steve realized with some relief that he couldn’t count Bucky’s ribs anymore. In fact, he even seemed to have a healthy layer of pudge over his tummy. Steve realized he’d forgotten what he looked like without the hollow cheeks and bony chest.

“Hi, Bucky,” Steve replied.

“I missed you,” Bucky wrote. He turned around and looked at Steve with adoring eyes.

“I missed you, too,” Steve said. “You never came back. To the sand. I thought you’d washed your hands of me. Or, you know, died.” Bucky’s shoulders fell and he whirled back around to his writing board.

“Never,” he wrote. “I just had-” Steve noticed him hesitate before continuing. “Things. I had to deal with.”

“You’re looking significantly healthier,” Steve said and Bucky looked over at him and sunk down further into the water shamefully. Only the top of his head and his hand appeared and he wrote again.

“Yes,thatwasoneofthosethings,” he wrote hastily.

“I’ll assume you worked something out,” Steve said and Bucky’s face slowly appeared out of the water again to look at him. He nodded a little. Then, he wrote again on the board and Steve expected him to explain, but he didn’t.

“When did you become a pirate?” He asked and Steve scoffed.

“I’m not a pirate,” he said. “I’m still the captain of a cargo ship, Buck.”

“I found you on a pirate ship,” Bucky wrote, looking at Steve questioningly and Steve let out a breath. He dropped his hand again, letting it dangle.

“We were captured,” he admitted quietly. “A lot of my men died. We aren’t fighters, we’re just travellers, but, uh…” He frowned down at the water. “Pretty much everyone was killed and they were about to kill me, too. You actually stopped them.”

“I never would have sang to you,” Bucky wrote apologetically. “Only them.”

“That’s your deal now, isn’t it?” Steve said, putting it together. “You only eat the bad guys.” Bucky nodded a little.

“I was gonna die,” he wrote. “I was almost there, I couldn’t even get up the energy to swim, and the idea came to me to only kill people who kill others.” He looked over his shoulder at Steve for approval. “It’s not perfect,” he wrote slowly. “And I don’t pretend to be a judge of anybody but-” He looked at Steve for a second time and this time he nodded and Bucky continued. “I was dying. I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“It’s a good plan, Bucky,” Steve said. “It could use some fine tuning, clearly, because you caught me-” Steve laughed. “But it’s a good plan.”

Then, Steve swallowed. A few quiet moments passed.

“I waited by the beach for months,” he said quietly and Bucky looked at him, blinking. “You couldn’t have stopped by even once?”

“I did!” He wrote. “I’ve been going back recently. You haven’t been there.”

“Well, recently, I’ve stopped,” Steve replied. “I had my ship back, my job back, I had to work. And you… You weren’t there.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky wrote. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

“Where were you?” Steve said and Bucky looked up at him.

“Half dead at the bottom of the ocean somewhere,” he wrote and glanced back up with those apologetic eyes and Steve groaned.

“I told you,” Steve cried. “I knew it, I knew you’d be in trouble if you went back.”

“But I took care of it,” Bucky wrote. “I had more of a chance here, Steve.”

“I had to throw out my mattress, Buck,” Steve admitted. “Had to scrub my carpets because they smelled like you. I put your picture face down because I couldn’t stand to look at you anymore, it hurt too much.”

Bucky flinched.

“I missed you,” he wrote slowly.

“I grieved you,” Steve replied angrily and sat up a little. “Twice.” He heard the sound of Bucky turning the sheet metal over for more writing room, but he didn’t want to read any more words. Bucky seemed to sense this, because the last thing he wrote covered the entire surface and he slapped the water to get Steve’s attention.

“I love you,” he wrote in big letters and Steve stared for a minute in pain before retreating further back on his rock where Bucky couldn’t see him anymore and wrapping his arms around his knees and burying his face. He heard the metal wobble and hit the water, the horrible sound of claws across it’s surface, and then splashing as Bucky dove away.